Convictions
by misfit320
Summary: While Ash and Shepard hunt the Reapers, Miranda and Jack are on a hunt of their own. But will they find what they're looking for? Rated M for languge, violence, and suggestive content.
1. … thanks, Miranda

**So, here is chapter 1 of my sister story to "Rules of Engagement."Takes place after "Coffee."  
><strong>

**Important note: As with "Rules of Engagement," this was started in October and almost entirely written before Mass Effect 3 came out. Any similarities between my story and the game is the result of the writers of Bioware exploiting a rift in the space/time continuum.  
><strong>

**Again, thanks to my awesome beta owl208 for the help!  
><strong>

**As always, all feedback/comments welcome.**

**And I don't own any of the characters, Bioware does. Though I'm beginning to think of them as my children too, so I'm suing for visitation rights.**

* * *

><p><span>Convictions<span>

Jack couldn't believe it. She had asked Shepard for a favor, only the second time she had ever done so, and he was making her talk to the Cheerleader. Jack fumed as she rode the elevator up from the engineering deck to the crew deck, where Miranda's office and quarters were located.

Jack and Miranda already had been at each others throats before. Only Shepard's interference, and their impending suicide mission, had kept them from killing each other. Jack had to admit, though, that Miranda had proven her prowess in combat, even to the point of the two of them working rather well together. They were both biotics, but very different in their approach: while Jack would run right up to the enemy, Miranda would hold back and take them down calmly and efficiently.

Respect from one warrior to another aside, Jack just didn't like Miranda. Mostly because she had been so unapologetically Cerberus, but partly because she was the antithesis of what Jack was. Jack was fiery, Miranda was cool. Jack was aggressive, Miranda was reserved. They had put aside their animosity during the assault on the Collector's base, but had avoided each other like the plague since then.

And now Shepard was making her deal with Miranda directly. _Why the hell is he making me do this? _She kept thinking to herself, over and over again. She found herself pacing in the small elevator. She wanted to punch a wall in frustration, but she figured that would only bring a pointless chastising from EDI, and she just didn't want to deal with that right now.

The doors eventually opened, and Jack stepped out. She made her way out into the mess, momentarily thinking about forgetting the whole thing. She knew she couldn't, though, so she walked up to Miranda's office, and opened the door.

Miranda was sitting at her desk, as always, and looked up, half startled to see Jack standing there. Shepard had sent her a message after he told Jack to discuss her plan with Miranda, but she hadn't been expecting Jack to arrive so quickly, indeed, she had just finished reading Shepard's message.

Jack stood for a moment, unsure of what to do next.

"Hey."

"Hi Jack… is there something I can do for you," came Miranda's hesitant reply.

Jack looked around the room, anywhere to avoid looking at Miranda. "I… need to talk to you about something," she finally said.

Miranda had to hide her obvious surprise. Usually, if Jack had anything she wanted to talk about, she would speak to Shepard. Occasionally she would let Kelly know that she needed to talk, but most times, she would only talk to Shepard. She would, of course, raise some hell with their fellow teammates; she had particularly started to get along with Zaeed, but anything besides war stories and comparing scars was usually off limits between the two.

"What is it, Jack?"

Jack quickly tossed the datapad onto Miranda's desk. "The facility at Pragia wasn't the only one. There were more. Lots more. Cerberus has been trying to make the perfect human biotic for a long time. I… I want to… fuck…"

Jack looked down and turned her back to Miranda. She wasn't sure how to tell Miranda what she had to. She didn't want to come off as pathetic, or weak, especially to Miranda… but she had to get it out in the open.

"I want to make sure that no one else went through what I did."

Miranda was surprised. That single, startling admission from Jack was the most… human… she had ever been with Miranda. Normally, Miranda would just make a snide comment, but she found that she couldn't. Perhaps it was Shepard's influence, but… she actually felt some compassion for the woman. She was surprised at this, and didn't truly understand why, but she did.

"Of course, Jack. I'll see what information you were able to find, and see what we can do. I assume you already spoke to Shepard?"

Jack nodded. "And I assume he warned you I was coming up here?"

Miranda smiled slightly. "I'll see what I can find to supplement your information, and we'll figure out the best way to approach these."

Jack nodded, and walked towards the door. As it opened, she stopped, and, ever so quietly, said "… thanks, Miranda."

Before Miranda could respond, Jack was gone. She leaned back in her seat, trying to process her interaction with their resident "psychotic biotic." She told herself that she had agreed to help Jack if only to show that not everyone associated with Cerberus was evil, though she was unsure why she cared what Jack thought.

She had to admit to herself that she also wanted to put her own mind at ease; the thought of other facilities doing what Pragia had done in the name of Cerberus did not set well with her, and she felt she had an obligation to investigate them. She had gone with Shepard and Jack to the facility at Pragia, and saw the horrors there. Regardless of why she had agreed to help, she knew she would have to let Shepard know that they were both alive after their conversation.

* * *

><p>Three days later, they had finished their mission to Ilos. It had still been a heretic geth stronghold but between both Strike Teams, they had put down all resistance. They were now on their way to Omeron, the first Cerberus base that Jack had found. While Miranda hadn't been able to get more information beyond what Jack had uncovered, it was decided to hit Omeron first, as it was within a day's travel from Ilos, and it would give the team time to get some more leads on their primary mission of trying to stop the coming Reaper invasion.<p>

Shepard and Ash had made it clear that Jack and Miranda were to be in charge of prioritizing targets, coming up with the best strategy for each location, and executing it. While they would be accompanying them, Miranda and Jack were to take the lead together on this.

Surprisingly, the two of them had worked well together in going over the intel that they had been able to piece together. This first target should be abandoned, though as they saw on Pragia, that that could change in a heartbeat, so they both knew to be prepared for anything.

They were in the cargo bay, finishing getting ready before boarding the Kodiak to make their descent to the planet below. The team for this operation would be Miranda, Jack, Shepard, and Ash. If needed, Legion, Thane, and Garrus were on standby to provide backup.

As the four-man team boarded the shuttle, Miranda noticed that Jack was rather quiet. She sat in the far corner of the shuttle, almost folded in upon herself, (her) staring out the window. There was none of her usual bravado, no swagger. _She almost looks like a scared little girl, _she thought to herself. She shook her head and quickly pushed the mental image away. Jack was the most powerful human biotic, if not one of the most powerful biotics, ever. Thinking about the things she'd witnessed Jack do in battle, Miranda felt a sense of relief that things hadn't escalated during their argument in her office. She had to grudgingly admit that Jack was much more powerful than her, though much less in control.

Meanwhile, across the shuttle, Jack felt cold. Though she had taken to wearing a flak jacket in battle instead of just the leather harness she normally wore, she felt a chill running through her. She had destroyed the facility that she had been held in, but she felt like she was going back there. From what she and Miranda knew, it was setup almost identically like the one on Pragia, as were most of the other ones. _What the fuck is wrong with me, _she thought to herself, over and over again. She thought of someone else being subjected to what happened at Pragia, and felt a small ball of anger start to form in her gut. She tried to focus on that, pushing all other feelings to the back of her mind.

The shuttle finally touched down in front of the facility. They were at the edge of a large grassy field. The facility itself had been constructed in a small alcove in the mountain range that framed the plains. The four of them exited the shuttle, looking at the facility. It was clear that it had been long abandoned; however, there were still some lights on.

"It looks like we might not be alone," Shepard warned the group.

Miranda shook her head while checking her omni-tool. "Chances are it's the backup generators. They can run for decades. It was expected that if they were cut off from Cerberus, they would have to survive for quite some time before a supply ship could come all the way out to the Terminus Systems. EDI, any readings?"

"None detected, Miss Lawson. It appears that you were correct, the backup generators are functioning. There is limited power to the facility, but I am detecting no heat signatures within."

Miranda nodded to herself, and then looked up to address the other three. Shepard and Ash wore the cool, collected looks that showed they were ready for anything. Jack, however, was rocking from one side to another, eyes darting all around. "All right, we'll do a regular sweep, clear floor by floor. We'll recover whatever data we can."

They cautiously walked into the facility. The lights were flickering, but the facility was still in remarkably good condition. As they searched the bottom floor, which was a series of labs and offices, they came across no resistance. All of the data terminals they came across were nonoperational, but they found a working one on the second floor, in a small private office off of a large courtyard.

"It looks like the mainframe is still up," advised Miranda when she accessed it. "I believe I'll be able to recover a fair amount of data here. It's all encrypted, of course, but we can worry about that when we're back on the ship."

As Miranda downloaded the files, Shepard and Ash stood guard. "Where's Jack?" Ash wondered aloud, noticing that she wasn't in the room with them.

Suddenly, the sound of Jack's shotgun rang through the room. Immediately, all three brought up their weapons. The sound had come from the courtyard, along the far wall. Ash nodded at Shepard. "Go ahead, John. Miranda, you stay here and get that data."

Shepard took point, with Ash providing cover. As he exited the office, he saw Jack. She was firing her shotgun at what had to be a two-way mirror in the wall. Remembering Pragia, Shepard assumed that would be another hidden room, much like Jack's had been. He motioned for Ash and Miranda to stand down, and he holstered his weapon. He slowly walked over to Jack, and stood next to her as she emptied her shotgun. Once she was out of ammo, he waited for her to speak.

"It's exactly like Pragia. Same layout, same paint on the walls… same blood on the floors."

Shepard looked over to the right, where a dark stain on the floor stood.

"They did the same thing here. Made kids fight other kids, made them kill other kids. It wasn't the facilities that went rogue… it was the whole damn project."

Shepard stayed silent for a moment. "Come on, Jack. Miranda's getting the data. There's nothing more we can do here."

"Fucking cheerleader is just going to delete whatever makes her beloved Cerberus look bad, don't see the point."

"I don't think you're giving Miranda enough credit, Jack. She won't delete any information."

Jack turned on her heel and walked past Shepard. "Whatever," she muttered under her breath. She started walking back towards the entrance to the courtyard. When she reached the door, she turned and called back to the rest of the team. "Well, come on! Let's get the fuck out of here!"

They were silent the entire trip back to the Normandy. Jack stared out of the window, while Miranda started trying to decrypt the files on her Omni-tool. Shepard and Ash sat together, having already agreed to wait until they were back on the Normandy to discuss the mission. Jack was thankful that she was being left alone, as it was giving her time to think. _Why the hell am I upset about this? Why do I even care? _No matter how many times she asked herself these questions, she was never able to find an answer.

When they arrived at the Normandy, Jack fairly ran from the Kodiak back to her "quarters," the sub-level of Engineering that she had claimed as her own. Miranda quietly went to her quarters, while Ash and Shepard went to their cabin. Jack still couldn't understand why the facility on Omeron was affecting her so much. Yes, it was setup exactly like the one she had been held in as a child, but she wasn't supposed to care. She took out the one that had made her, so why did she care that there were others? As she lay on her bunk, her mind started wandering back a few weeks, trying to figure this all out.

After the mission to the Collector's base, when they returned to Omega for repairs, she had left the ship to wander the seedy, crime-filled station. As she had wandered the various markets and shops, she couldn't help but feel… lost. She had just assumed that she would die, and that would be that. But somehow, Shepard had gotten them all out alive. She didn't know why, but she had gotten in touch with one of her old contacts there. He had been known to get information that no one else could, usually about easy scores and careless marks, just waiting to get taken. This time, though, she had asked for some help getting information on Cerberus operations. He hadn't been able to get her much, but gave her a contact on the Citadel, a Volus working for the Shadow Broker who was fronting as a banker.

When Shepard had told the crew that after Omega they were going to the Citadel, she setup a meeting with him. Amazingly, when she arrived, he already had the files ready, and wouldn't take payment. He told her that the Shadow Broker was giving this information to her as a gift, as long as she used it to hurt Cerberus.

She had taken the data before he could change his mind, and gone back to her spot on the Normandy to look it over. It consisted of little more than a list of planets and years, showing when the facilities mentioned had been operational. Most were from the same time she had been a captive, but some were from almost a decade before she had been born, while a few had been shut down just a few years ago.

It had taken her a few days, but she had known she would have to ask Shepard for his help. He had agreed, but had made her work with Miranda to set everything up. It made sense, she knew, since Miranda still had some contacts within Cerberus that would get her the information they needed to investigate the facilities, but she still had hated it.

But she was still having a hard time trying to figure out why any of this mattered to her. These facilities weren't where she had been held, they didn't involve her in any way. Yet, she felt compelled to find out if what had happened to her had happened to other kids. And when she thought of other kids being tortured the way she had, the anger that had become so familiar to her over the years seemed to almost take over.

But there was something more to it than the anger. She realized that she also felt… sadness, which only served to get her angrier when she thought too much about it. She decided to just lie on her bunk and try to see if she could sleep. Maybe a game of cards with Zaeed later would make her feel more like herself. The old soldier's war stories and dirty jokes usually had a way of pushing whatever crap from her past that was bothering her right back where it belonged: in her past.

After twenty minutes of lying there, she realized that she wasn't going to be able to sleep. So she sat up and pulled one of her foot lockers out from underneath her cot. She opened it up and pulled out the black glass bottle she had hidden there. She pulled the stopper out, and took a long, hard pull from the bottle. While she usually preferred human or krogan alcohol, simply because of the strength it could come in, this bottle of batarian "whiskey" was among her favorites. It was strong, bitter, and since the batarians refused to sell it to any non-batarian you could usually only get a bottle by mugging a batarian, an added bonus as far as Jack was concerned. She settled in for the evening, planning to drink herself into a quiet oblivion for the night.

* * *

><p>While Jack was drinking, Miranda was already working to decrypt the files she had downloaded from the Omeron facility. She uploaded the files to her workstation and then changed out of her uniform and took a quick shower. Since her departure from Cerberus, she had removed all of their logos from her clothing, though she still found the white and black suit was best suited for her in combat. While not offering much in way or armor, it gave her the flexibility and mobility that she needed for her style of fighting. After all, why would you need to take a hit when you could avoid it altogether?<p>

She changed into a pair of simple black pants and a grey tank top. Since they had split from Cerberus, and they had started their mission against the reapers, she had found it easier to relax when not on duty. She still wasn't overly friendly with the crew, as she still was the XO and she felt she needed to maintain a professional distance, but she found that it was getting easier to get along with everyone.

She quickly went out to the mess to get a cup of coffee, and then came back to her quarters to try to decrypt the data. She recognized the code that was being used; it was an older Cerberus cipher, one that had stopped being used quite some time ago. Fortunately, she would be able to get through the code quickly, since she had memorized many of the older codes as practice. She estimated that it would only take an hour or so, since there wasn't much data in the first place. She absently wondered what information she would find, though she didn't hold out much hope that it would be anything new.

The one thought that kept coming to the forefront of her mind was the look on Jack's face when they had gotten back to the Kodiak. She had only caught a glimpse before Jack moved to the back of the shuttle away from everyone else, but her expression caught Miranda's eye. It had been a mixture of rage, frustration, disappointment, and sadness. Miranda couldn't understand why she couldn't get Jack's face out of her mind, but there it was. She told herself it was because she needed to know if Jack would be able to continue with their mission, and quickly focused on the data.

After a little while, Miranda had all of the files decrypted. She was tempted to start going through them to plan their next action, but Jack's face came back to her thoughts. She knew that the two of them were supposed to be taking the lead on this investigation, but she wasn't sure how Jack was doing after hitting the first facility. Jack's distraught face again came to her mind, and she was concerned that Jack would shut down and refuse to proceed with this.

Sighing, Miranda realized that she had no choice. She would have to talk to Jack, and they would have to work on this together. She stood up and downloaded the files to two OSDs. She walked out of her quarters with both OSDs in one hand, quickly made a second cup of coffee, and headed down to Engineering.

As the elevator opened, Miranda stepped out into the hallway overlooking the cargo bay. She could see some of the crew playing a game of basketball, an old Earth sport that had recently experienced a bit of resurgence in popularity. She stood for a moment, and then frowned to herself. Something felt wrong. Then she realized what it was: she had forgotten to put her shoes back on. The entire way down to engineering she had been barefoot, and hadn't realized it. Of course, her stiletto heeled boots weren't the best to walk around the ship in, especially when she was trying to be a little more relaxed, but she hadn't even put on her flat shoes. She shrugged to herself. _It doesn't really matter much, _she thought to herself, and rounded the corner through the first pressure door. She made a quick turn down the stairs that would bring her down to Jack's area of the ship, not quite sure what to expect.

* * *

><p>Jack was not happy. No matter how much she drank, she wasn't getting drunk or falling asleep. The only thing that was happening was she was running out of whiskey. She had finally just given up and put the bottle away. For some reason, her eyes kept tearing up, though she couldn't figure out why. She was lying on her cot when she heard a voice speak from near the stairs. "Hopefully, you're not too tired to do some work."<p>

Jack almost grimaced. She didn't want to deal with the cheerleader right now. She was miserable, and Miranda would just make her more miserable. She also didn't like that she had tried to sneak up on her; what bothered her even more was that she had succeeded.

Jack sat up. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw that Miranda wasn't in her normal uniform. Jack realized that, except the few times where Miranda had been in med bay due to injuries, that she had never seen Miranda in anything but her Cerberus uniform.

"What do you want," Jack fairly growled the question at Miranda.

"I thought you would want to go over the files that we got on Omeron," Miranda replied, handing one of the OSDs to Jack.

Jack just stared at the datapad. "What, don't you ever sleep? We just hit that place, and there was nothing. They're all going to be dead ends. I don't know why I even bothered with this crap, it's pointless."

Miranda sighed and put the datapad on the table across from Jack's bunk. She leaned against the table and faced her. Jack's eyes were red and glassy and her hands, which were hanging between her knees, were slightly shaking. Jack's eyeliner and dark lipstick were slightly smudged. _Almost like she had been crying._ The thought hit Miranda quickly, though she found it hard to imagine Subject Zero crying. Nonetheless, the evidence was in front of her.

"You look like shit, Jack."

Jack bristled. No one came down here and insulted her. This was her territory, and anyone who had a problem with her could go fuck themselves. But what pissed her off even more was that Miranda's comment held no malice, no spite. It was almost… pitying.

"Fuck you, cheerleader. We're not all designed by Daddy to be perfect. Some of us are just fucked up monsters."

Jack's retort barely fazed Miranda. She had long ago accepted that Jack would always play the engineered card against her, so it stopped having an effect. But again, the expression Jack had held on her face when they were leaving Omeron forced itself to the forefront of her mind. Miranda realized that it was the same expression Jack had on her face now; not the expression of an experienced killer, but of a scared, hurt, and confused little girl. She didn't know what possessed her, maybe it was the thought of Jack having to fight and kill other children to survive the horrible abuse she had gone through, maybe it was just trying to get Jack out of her mood so they could work, or perhaps it was something else, but she found herself quietly saying, "You're not a monster."

Jack blinked in surprised, scowled, and looked back down to the floor. Why did it matter to her if Miranda thought she was a monster or not? Jack was what she was and there was no changing, no apologizing. There was certainly no pity. "Fuck you. I don't want your sympathy."

"I'm not offering any. Look, you wanted to check out these facilities. I can help. Either we work together to find out exactly what happened, why it was happening, and who was doing it, or we forget the whole thing. Personally, I like finishing what I start."

Jack glowered at Miranda. For some reason, she still felt the compulsion to get to the bottom of the whole thing, to find out who started the projects and who the test subjects were; she wanted to know everything. And as much as she hated to admit it, Miranda was right: she knew she looked like shit.

After a moment, Jack stood up and took the datapad from the table. She quickly sat back on her cot and opened the files. She paged through a few of them, when Miranda's voice came again, "Coffee?"

Looking up, Jack saw that Miranda was offering her cup of coffee. Slowly, Jack reached for it. As she grasped the mug, her fingers came into contact with Miranda's. For whatever reason, this slight touch brought a modicum of comfort to her. Perhaps it was the knowledge that she wasn't alone in this endeavor or just her emotional state at the moment, but her hand lingered there.

She quickly pulled her hand and the coffee mug back, embarrassed at her hesitation. She pulled her legs up under herself, and cradled the cup in both hands. She took a sip of the coffee, then spoke to Miranda. "Black? Good, I like that you don't drink your coffee with cream and sugar, like a pussy."

Miranda smiled to herself. She had felt Jack's momentary hesitation when she took the mug, and felt much of the same relief.

"Perhaps we have more in common than we thought," she said, as they both looked back to their datapads.

* * *

><p><strong>So there we are, continuing down the "Road to Babylon," as I call my series. Please feel free to let me know what you think! <strong>

**Future chapters guaranteed to contain: sex, violence, swearing, and... reunions?**


	2. You've lost a lot of blood

**Here it is, chapter two in the story of everyone's favourite biotics! Thanks to everyone for their feedback on Chapter 1! Hopefully, Chapter 2 live up to whatever expectations people have! :-)**

**As always, all comments/reviews/critiques welcome!  
><strong>

**Bioware owns the characters, but I stole their souls... *maniacal laugh***

* * *

><p>They were pinned down, and blood was flowing from the wound in her side. <em>Just fucking great,<em> thought Jack. _I'm gonna die and it's all because of some stupid fucking varren. _

It was a week after Omeron, and they were on Persius, investigating another Cerberus facility. As with last time, Miranda, Jack, Ash and Shepard went down to investigate, this time with Samara, Jacob, and Kasumi standing by as backup. And now, it was needed.

They had been halfway through the facility without any problems, when a small pack of wild varren had run at the group. There had been five total, which was no problem, but they had let down their guard when after they cut down the animals, and that's when they had been ambushed by a large team of Blood Pack mercenaries. Jack had quickly taken a shotgun blast to the chest, which had mostly been absorbed by her shields, but still sent her flying backwards. She had been instantly grateful that she had taken to wearing the flak jacket over her regular leather harness; otherwise she would be much worse off.

As it was, she was still pretty badly off. After the initial blast, when her shields had been down and before she could get to cover, she had felt herself get shot in the side. It was only a pistol round, but without shields, it still hurt, and left a very nasty whole in her flesh. Even with the wound, though, she was helping lay down cover fire for her teammates, though she saw Miranda was pinned down as well, with her ankle bent at an impossible angle. Shepard and Ash, with their heavier armor, were making their way forward, though the Blood Pack mercenaries were still laying down heavy fire.

Suddenly, the wall at the far side of the room came crashing down. A Ymir mech stormed through the rubble, and started firing rockets at the four of them. Ash and Shepard were able to get behind cover before they took any fire, but now they were in the same position Miranda and Jack were: stuck.

"Miranda!"

Jack screamed over the roar of gunfire and incoming rockets. She saw Miranda look over to her, pain and determination creasing her face. Jack had to assume that she looked much the same way, though now was no time to let their injuries affect them. She nodded at Miranda twice, and Miranda nodded back once. They fell into a routine that they had used many times in combat before.

Once there was a lull in the gunfire, Jack stepped out from behind the cases she had been behind. She fired off a few quick rounds from her shotgun, then dropped it back behind the cases, and brought both of her hands up. She erected a barrier of biotic energy in front of her, right as the Ymir fired off a salvo of rockets. Right before they impacted, Miranda fed her own biotic energy to Jack, and, as the rockets reached Jack's barrier, she forced the barrier back towards the mech, throwing the rockets right back at it.

The rockets impacted the heavy mech, and shattered its armor. Shepard and Ash quickly sprang from their cover and poured rounds from their assault rifles into the machine, dropping it in a pile of scrap. The wreckage exploded, finishing off the nearby Blood Pack mercenaries.

Seeing that they were now clear, Jack collapsed to the ground. She felt lightheaded, and she could feel blood pouring from her wound.

"Jack!" Miranda called as she made her way over to the injured woman. She crawled over the ground, her broken ankle throbbing and sending sharp jolts of pain up her spine. Once she got to Jack, she turned her over onto her back. Jack let out a quiet moan and grimaced as Miranda moved her. Once she had Jack on her back, she tore Jack's flak jacket off to inspect the wound more closely. She saw that it wasn't deep, but it was wide, leading to a lot of blood loss. Combined with the massive effort that using biotics took, she was surprised that Jack hadn't passed out much earlier.

She quickly pulled out a small metal stiletto from her medkit, and reached into the wound to pull out the bullet. Jack winced, but was too close to unconsciousness to do more than that. Fortunately, the bullet hadn't fragmented, and it wasn't an enhanced round, such as an incendiary or toxic round, so it was just the wound. She quickly applied some medi-gel, but the main issue was Jack's blood loss.

By the time Miranda was done with the field dressing, Shepard and Ash had come back over. "Kodiak, we have wounded, need pick-up!" Shepard shouted into the radio to the shuttle's pilot.

"Copy that, Shepard. ETA is ninety seconds; we'll be out front when you get there."

Shepard looked down and immediately picked up Jack, being careful not to disturb the wound again. Ash helped Miranda up and put Miranda's arm over her shoulder, and together, the four of them made their way back to the front of the building and to the waiting shuttle.

*Jack woke up several hours later. She was in medbay, with an IV in her left arm. She saw Doctor Chakwas over at her station near the door. She felt tired and had a massive headache, but thankfully the normally bright lights had been dimmed down. She felt her side where she had been shot: except for the slightly swollen feeling where the med-gel had sealed the wound, she couldn't even tell she had been shot. She knew the muscles below the skin would take some time to heal, but she would be fine. _Another fight, another scar_, she thought to herself.

She tried to sit up, but felt too tired to, though Chakwas heard her moving, and was soon next to the bed.

"You should rest. You've lost a lot of blood."

"Fuck that, I'm fine." Jack tried to sit up again, grimaced, and collapsed back onto the bed.

"As I said, you should rest. I must admit, Miranda did an admirable job in patching you up on the battlefield. If everyone keeps getting better at field dressing, pretty soon I can retire."

Jack ignored the playful tone in Chakwas' voice. She looked around her. In the bed across from her lay Miranda, her foot elevated and in a plastic cast.

Chakwas followed Jack's eyes. "Her ankle was pretty badly broken, nearly shattered. I was able to put it back together, but she'll be limping for a couple weeks. No ground missions for either of you for awhile."

Jack sighed as she leaned back on the bed. She hated being stuck in medbay. Mostly because anyone could come in at any time and bother her. With Miranda in medbay as well, chances were Shepard, Ash, and Kelly would be in and out all the time. She hoped that she wouldn't be stuck in here too long.

Chakwas seemed to know what she was thinking. "As soon as you're feeling better, I'll let you go. The wound is healing quite well, and the tissue behind the skin is repairing itself nicely. As soon as your body replenishes your red cells, you'll be off, back to your quarters. I would advise tripling your normal intake of non-alcoholic liquids for the next three days, and forgoing any strenuous physical activity until I give you the ok, but you'll be fine." One thing Jack always appreciated was Chakwas' lack of pity or sympathy with her. She told her what the deal was, and then left her alone. "If you need anything, the call button's right next to you. Otherwise, since you and Miranda are both stable, I'm going to go to my own quarters for the night. Please try to not leave Medbay until I check you in the morning," Chakwas almost sighed this, knowing Jack would probably be gone in the morning.

Jack lay back on the bed, and she heard Chakwas leaving medbay. Jack sighed, and tried to get some sleep.

"It seems I hate being stuck in medbay just as much as you. I guess we have another thing in common." Miranda's voice came from the near-darkness of medbay. Jack picked her head up, and could see Miranda through the darkness.

Jack chuckled to herself. "Along with getting our asses kicked by some fucking punk mercenaries."

"That too."

They laid in silence for a moment. She wasn't sure why, perhaps it was her restless nature, or perhaps she needed to know, but Jack found herself asking "So, why are you doing this?"

Miranda was confused by Jack's question. "Doing what?"

"Helping me. Investigating these Cerberus facilities. I mean, up until Shepard gave Timmy the finger and told him where to shove his humanity; you were the biggest fan of Cerberus I'd ever seen. Now… you're different. What's the deal?"

Miranda paused for a moment. She had tried to give it some thought, but she had never been able to find a good reason for it. Obviously, Shepard had asked her and Jack to look into it, but there was something more.

"I guess that's why I need to do this. I spent most of my life dedicated to Cerberus. I was convinced that helping humanity, protecting our growth, was what Cerberus wanted. I've always been a 'the ends justify the means' type of person, so the odd report of projects gone awry didn't concern me. Every group has their fanatics, so of course Cerberus would have its share.

"Shepard told me about finding the colonists killed by a thresher maw back during his hunt for Saren, and I attributed it to a rogue group. What I didn't tell him was that it was the third report of something like that happening, all on different planets. The Illusive Man told me he had no knowledge of this, that they had been rogue groups.

"When you said that it had been Cerberus that had experimented on you, I didn't believe it. I thought it had to be one group that didn't have authorization. But then you said you found other facilities. At first, I thought this would be a chance to prove you wrong, to show that the other facilities were run properly, without the inhuman abuses you experienced. To show you that Cerberus wasn't this monstrous group you, and most others, thought it was. What we found on Omeron confirmed that it wasn't just one facility, it was the whole project. You were right… and I was wrong. And if I was wrong about that, what else could I be wrong about? What if my whole life has been in service of a lie?"

Jack laid there in the dark, listening. She finally got Miranda to admit that she had been right all along. She knew she should feel vindicated, she should jump up and shout "I told you so" to her, but she found herself unable to speak. She remembered how she felt when she realized that she hadn't been the only child being abused, that a lot of her memories had been a lie.

What Miranda said next, though, shocked Jack to the core.

"Jack, I'm sorry."

Jack sat up, ignoring the sharp pain in her side. "What? Why the fuck would you say that?"

Miranda didn't move. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling, not even looking at Jack. "When I said that you were clearly a mistake… I meant what happened to you, the way you were treated, not you yourself. But I was angry and I knew it would hurt you. But you weren't the mistake."

Jack sat there for a moment. It might have been the way the light from the common area outside coming in through the windows combined with the low light in the medbay, but Jack thought she saw tears on Miranda's face.

Eventually, she lay back on the bed. Part of her wanted to run out of medbay, the other part of her was oddly at peace. Faced with these conflicting feelings, Jack just laid there. "Just… get some rest, Miranda."

"You too, Jack."

They laid there in silence, each wondering exactly what their conversation had been about.

* * *

><p>Two days later, Miranda was sitting up in her bed in medbay, going over some of the files that Tali had downloaded from the facility on Persius. Jack had gotten the ok from Dr Chakwas to leave medbay that morning and return to her quarters, though she would have to come in for a daily checkup for a week, just to monitor how it was healing, but until Chakwas said so, she was off of ground missions.<p>

Miranda, though, with her nearly shattered ankle, was going to take some more time. Chakwas had repaired it easily enough, but not even medigel could make broken bones and torn ligaments and tendons heal overnight. Instead, she would probably be in a cast for a week, and then it would be about a month longer until she was fully healed. While it would be tomorrow morning that she could go back to her own quarters, she decided to keep busy by decrypting the files from Persius. Tali had done an admirable job in getting them after the initial landing party returned to the Normandy, and Miranda was impressed at the quarian's hacking skills as nearly all of the files complete.

When Miranda got to one of the files, though, she frowned in confusion. It was still heavily encrypted. She had run all of the data through her own Cerberus decryption routines, so there shouldn't be anything that was still unable to be accessed. She tried to use all of the codes she had memorized, but it wouldn't work. Whatever was in this file was using a code she had never encountered before.

She decided to come back to it later on. The next file she pulled up was a list of all of their test subjects, which also made her frown. As with all the previous facilities, they had their subjects numbered, obviously in an attempt to dehumanize them. The odd thing about this, though, was that they had multiple Subject Zeroes. They had them listed as Subject Zero point One, Zero point two, all the way up to Zero point Seven.

From the files that Miranda and Jack had already retrieved, they had found a pattern to this research. Each facility would have their own Subject Zero, which would be the main test subject. The other children were subjected to various experiments to try to augment their biotic abilities. Once the researchers found a technique that worked, it was applied to Subject Zero and tested in combat against another subject.

But this facility had had seven Subject Zeroes. Miranda couldn't understand why, but she had an assumption that it had to do with the encoded file. She had to figure out how to break the code. She would check with Tali or Garrus to see if they could help her figure it out. In the meantime, she still had other files to go over, as well as her regular duties as XO.

Shepard and Ash had finally been able to get some information they could use in hunting down a way to fight the Reapers, so Jack and Miranda's side mission was going to take a back seat for a few days, which worked out fine, as they were both grounded while their injuries healed. While they both were healing, they had decided to go over the information that they already had, and use their various contacts to see if they could get any more intel on the planets and systems these facilities were located in, as well as tracking down any names of people associated with them.

So far, Miranda hadn't gotten too much. She was hoping that Jack, with her contacts in the criminal underworld, was finding more, but wasn't hopeful. Cerberus usually ran tight operations, and the likelihood of any criminal organization getting intel on what was going on usually ran slim to none.

The door to medbay opened, and in walked Jack. She came over to Miranda's bed, pulled over a crate, and sat down, with her own datapad. Apparently, she had found something after all.

"Ok, so check it out. I found out that Persius and three other facilities all placed large orders through a pharmaceutical company called EcoGen. Massive amounts of medical supplies; bandages, antiseptics, scanners, you name it."

"That's odd," Miranda interjected, confused. "Cerberus supplies all of their own facilities. They shouldn't have been ordering supplies from any company."

Jack smiled maliciously. "That's because I found out the Cerberus supply ships got hit by some pirates. My guess is they were too embarrassed that their stuff got hijacked, so they just ordered it themselves rather than let Mr. Illusive Prick know that they cost him a whole lot of money."

"Quite possible, though how a research facility came about that many credits is curious."

Jack's smile quickly faded. "How do you think they raised the money? They sold some of the kids into slavery. They had plenty of them, and they were just going to be used as guinea pigs anyways, who would miss a dozen or so?"

Miranda nodded grimly. One thing they've come to accept in their investigation was the callus and inhuman way the researchers regarded the children they were experimenting on.

"Anyways," Jack continued, "all of the shipments were dropped at the facility on Gaid, then they distributed them from there. If we hit Gaid first, we'll probably have the most luck of finding out anything, especially since it was operational just fifteen years ago, more recently than the others."

Miranda looked over the information that Jack had found. "Good idea, Jack. That way, we're not wasting time at the others."

"Right. And there's more. Once the first delivery was made, they started getting other deliveries from EcoGen. And not just more supplies…"

Miranda's eyes widened. "They were getting test subjects! More children."

"Yup. I couldn't find where EcoGen was getting the kids from, but I'll bet there's something on Gaid that'll tell us more."

"I also found something. Persius had seven different Subject Zeroes." Miranda handed her datapad over to Jack so she could see.

"Seven? What the hell?" Jack looked over the reports that Miranda had decrypted. "And what's this other file?"

"I don't know. It's not any cipher that Cerberus uses. It might be something they developed internally. It seems to me that these four facilities were all working in tandem, perhaps this cipher was used for communications between them. I'll bet it's in reference to either the multiple Subject Zeroes, or the shipments from EcoGen."

"I can't wait to get to Gaid. God, I hope there's someone there for me to shoot."

Miranda smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait before we can try to shoot someone. Neither of us has gotten the ok from Doctor Chakwas to join the ground missions yet. Which must really be difficult for you, since you're usually on Shepard's landing team."

Jack was a little surprised that Miranda seemed to care how being grounded was affecting her. True, she was going stir crazy knowing she would be cooped up on the ship at least another two weeks to avoid her straining the repaired muscles in her side, but she was trying to keep herself otherwise occupied.

"I'm fine. At least I'm out of Medbay."

Miranda smiled. "Yes, at least you have that over me. Thought not for long, I'm due out tomorrow morning. Doctor Chakwas just wants to take one last look at how the bones are settling, and then I'll be up and out."

"Good, because I need to get moving again. Isn't it weird how a gunshot heals faster than a few broken bones?"

"Medi-gel is wonderful, but I guess it can't do everything. But I guess this little delay will give us some more time to try dig up some more information. Maybe even get this mystery file decoded."

Jack nodded. "I got a few more people I can call to check on EcoGen. Maybe Kasumi or Zaeed will have some contacts we can use."

Miranda was surprised at Jack's idea. She knew that Jack had no problem talking to Zaeed, but that was usually limited to drinking or killing stories. As far as Miranda knew, Jack had never actually spoken to Kasumi about anything. Obviously, Jack was getting to be far more sociable than she ever was before. Even the fact that she was speaking to Miranda without any threats of violence was a big step, much less that they were actually getting along.

Jack stood to leave. "Heal up quick, Lawson. I can't go shoot anyone until you're healed, and that's putting a damper on my otherwise sunny disposition."

Miranda smiled as Jack left Medbay. _She made a joke, and not even a dirty one at that, _she thought. Miranda found herself actually enjoying the time they spent together lately, though she assumed that it was because they were further along in their investigation every time they spoke. _No, it's not just that. I think I actually enjoy her company. _The thought surprised Miranda, though not much. It seemed that life was full of surprises when Jack was around.

* * *

><p><em>What the hell was that? <em>Jack wasn't even all the way out of Medbay when she realized that she had made a joke. _Why the hell would I say something stupid like that? _Jack shook her head. For whatever reason, she had found herself in a good mood lately. While the thought of what had happened to hundreds of children infuriated her, the fact that they were finding out more and more about the whole project was pleasing to her. And the fact that she and Miranda were working together, and working together well, made things that much better.

For some reason, the two days that they had been in Medbay together, she had found herself reassured by Miranda's presence, though she couldn't explain why. Most likely it was because they could discuss the mission any time they wanted. Or maybe it was knowing that she wasn't alone in her search for answers. Or maybe it was…

She refused to think anymore about it. Thinking often led to feeling, and feeling only led to getting hurt. Instead, she focused on the facts that they had uncovered. She had a few contacts left in the pirate underworld, and she also knew how to get a hold of some corporate sellouts who wouldn't hesitate to trade what they knew on EcoGen for some quick credits.

As she rode the elevator down to engineering, she absently rubbed her side where she had been shot. It barely even hurt anymore, just a dull soreness and a little swelling. It hit her that she hadn't thanked Miranda for saving her life on Persius, as it was her quick actions to get the bullet out and the medi-gel in that had allowed Chakwas to finish the job back on the Normandy. _Why should I thank her,_ Jack thought to herself. _That's part of our job on the battlefield. Keep each other patched up so we can fight again tomorrow._

Still, she guessed she should thank Miranda, _just to make sure everything stays all sunshine and rainbows between us, _she thought as the elevator opened to the engineering deck. She figured she'd go see Miranda later. In the meantime, she was going to ask Zaeed if he might have any contacts in his mercenary circles that might be able to get them some information, and maybe see if she could win some credits off him playing some cards.

* * *

><p><strong>So, there's Chapter 2. I'll probably be updating the story soon with actual chapter titles. <strong>

**Coming soon: revelations, explanations... and shadow brokers?**


	3. You'll keep this just between us?

**Sorry for the delay everyone! Life has been pretty busy lately, but I've also been working on a series of stories based after ME3, one right afterwards, and another quite a time after. But I'm going to finish Road to Babylon first before, since it's almost done anyways.**

**So, without further ado, I present Convictions, Chapter 3. Someday soon I'll title each chapter.**

**Also, please check out Rules of Engagement for the other side of this story!**

**All feedback and critiques welcome, negative or positive.**

**Bioware owns all of the characters. I just take them for a test drive, take it through the drive-through, and bring 'em back to the lot.**

* * *

><p>Jack raised her arms in victory. "Ha, I TOLD you I'd destroy you!"<p>

Zaeed groaned. "Oh, bloody hell, shut up!"

Jack wouldn't let up, though. She pointed at the mercenary. "No, not a chance in hell! I told you you'd get hurt, and I was right!"

She threw her cards down on the table, showing Zaeed her winning hand. "I told you never to play Salarian Stud with ANYONE who's been in a religious cult, but no, you're an old hand at this game. And that just cost you… oh, look at that, ALL of your credits!"

"Ah, bugger off with that, lass. You know I let you win that game."

"Oh really?"

"Yes. I could easily take you out if'n I wanted. In fact, I still have some credits stashed away, what do you say? Double or nothing?"

Jack snorted as she reached for the bottle of whiskey sitting on the table. "Nope. You're not doing that to me. I don't care if you actually are a pro at this game, you're not goading me into another game so you can try to win your money back. It's mine now, and I'm putting towards another tat."

Zaeed sighed as he leaned back. "At least put my money towards something useful, like a gun or something."

Jack took a long, deep swig of whiskey before handing the bottle to Zaeed. "Nope, tat. In fact, I know what I'm gonna get." She pointed to the lower part of her abdomen, right where her low-slung jeans were. "It's going right here, and it's gonna say 'Zaeed Massani is a' and have an arrow pointing downwards."

Zaeed snorted has he finished his drink. "Well, if I can't get in your pants, the next best thing would be my name getting in them. Besides, no one but you and one other person will ever see that then." He shot Jack a sly smirk.

Jack immediately lost her cocky smile. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Zaeed leaned forward, and started gathering the cards together. "Come on, love, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout. The piece of work in the catsuit."

Jack's mouth fell open. "Miranda? What the hell, Zaeed, I knew you were a pervert, but come on!"

Zaeed chuckled. "Come off it, love. The two of you have been working rather well together in hittin' those Cerberus bases. Late nights in the mess hall 'planning' and 'strategizing.' Even with one good eye, I can tell what's goin' on wit' you two."

"Yeah, we're 'planning' and 'strategizing.' God, get your mind out of the gutter."

Zaeed set the cards down and looked Jack in the eye. "You're tellin' me that you haven't even thought about snogging 'er 'ead off?"

Jack stared back at Zaeed, but for whatever reason couldn't answer him. Finally, she leaned back. "Fuck you, Massani."

Zaeed smiled. "Well, if'n you're offerin'. But I'm not sayin' none of this to be cruel, lass. Just speakin' truth as I see it."

Jack just glared at Zaeed. While she would freely admit to herself that she had thought about Miranda, she still said that it was only because Miranda was attractive. And yes, they had been working well together, and building a good rapport, but it was all business.

Or was it? Jack would find herself at times wishing she had some new piece of intel that she could tell Miranda about, just so she could have a reason to see her. And the few times that they touched, usually hands brushing against each other as they handed datapads back and forth, always sent a small chill down her spine.

But she refused to let Zaeed know he had touched on something. "You just want the mental picture of me and Miranda going at it."

Zaeed laughed as he took another swig from the bottle. "I can already picture it, lass, but if you do decide to snog 'er, you come down here and I'll GIVE you my credits for the sordid details, won't even make you go through a card game to take my credits."

Jack chuckled. "Old man, if I told you half of the stuff I do in the bedroom, you'd drop dead of a heart attack."

Zaeed laughed as he offered the bottle to Jack. "Maybe so. But we'll never know unless you tell me."

Jack took a swig. "Nope, not gonna happen. I may run around almost naked, but I don't fuck and tell. At least, not unless I want to. Besides, as far as Miranda's concerned, while I would do things to her that would make the most experienced Asari whore turn red, she still used to be Cerberus, and I don't really trust her."

Zaeed smiled wickedly at Jack. "Don't need to trust someone to fuck 'em. Unless you're into the kinky stuff, which I assume you are…"

"That's it, I'm outta here!" Jack stood up and stuffed the credit chits into her pockets. As she walked past Zaeed, she paused for a moment. "You, uh… won't tell anyone, right?"

Zaeed looked up at her. He knew he had been right, but this confirmed it. While they joked and gave each other a hard time, he had come to regard the younger woman as a protégé. "Don't worry, lass, gossiping about people's personal lives ain't my style. 'Less they play me in cards, then s'all fair game."

She nodded to herself. She had come to learn that when Zaeed said something, he meant it. He was one of the few people Jack could trust.

She reached over Zaeed and took the bottle of whiskey with her. Zaeed chuckled. "You certainly need that more than I do, girlie!"

"Fuck off, geriatric bastard!" Jack called over her shoulder as the door sealed behind her.

* * *

><p>Miranda hated being stuck in medbay. Especially considering her own quarters, with her terminals, were just across the deck. But with the severity of her ankle injury, Doctor Chakwas was refusing to let her go, at least until she was able to put some weight on it. Considering almost every single bone had been broken, it was going to take some time.<p>

In the mean time, she was trying to keep busy. She and Jack had just conference a few hours ago about their operation. She was hoping Jack found something soon: she had just about finished the duty rosters and supply requisitions for the coming week.

She had to admit, though, that she was enjoying her time working with Jack. While she had always assumed Jack was out of control, she realized that Jack just didn't care what people thought of her: she would do and say whatever she wanted to. Miranda envied that wild freedom that Jack enjoyed: she felt she always had to maintain control, a leftover of her time with her father and then with Cerberus.

Coming as a total surprise to both of them was how well the two of them actually got along. Of course, they had realized early on that they complimented each other well on the battlefield: Jack would use her raw biotic power in ways Miranda had never even thought, and Miranda would feed her own biotic energy to Jack, bringing the level of things they could do from incredible to awe-inspiring. The rocket catching trick that they had used on Persius when they had both gotten injured was nothing compared to some of the things they had done.

But when the two of them started working together, they had realized that they got along better than they could have expected. In fact, during the time in medbay before Jack was released, they had even started talking about their lives like old friends. They each had some insight on the other: while Miranda had accompanied Shepard and Jack to Pragia, Shepard had brought Jack when they were rescuing Oriana and her family.

Thinking of the fights both missions entailed, Miranda absently wondered what else Jack could do with her biotics, which quickly lead her down a road she hadn't been expecting. She shook her head to stop herself from getting too carried away: while she certainly found Jack attractive, she refused to think about such things. Yes, she had found herself wondering what other tattoos the convict had, but she told herself that it was more out of curiosity then an active desire in seeing Jack naked, regardless of how titillating the thought was.

Miranda sighed to herself. At least when she was busy with work, she could suppress these thoughts. When she was alone, though, they had a habit of coming to the forefront. She made herself focus on the facilities they had already hit, and their options in the remaining facilities. Gaid still seemed like the best option, bu

All of which was going to take some time to get back to. Until Miranda's injury healed, they weren't going to be able to hit any more facilities, which would put their entire operation on hold, except for tracking down sources and intel, both of which were in short supply. _Sometimes, I hate that Cerberus ran such an efficient operation,_ Miranda thought to herself.

She looked up as the door to medbay opened, and Kelly walked in. "Good afternoon, Miranda. How's the ankle?"

A few weeks ago, Miranda would have bristled at the familiarity in Kelly's words, but now she merely smiled in appreciation. Kelly was a person who genuinely cared about everyone she met. In the past few weeks, Kelly had become almost like a younger sister to Miranda, especially since her reconnection with Oriana. "Its fine, hopefully I'm out soon."

Kelly came and sat down next to the bed. "Good! In the meantime, I can process the requisitions and rosters for you. Oh, and Gardner told me to tell you that's he's whipping up a special meal for you as soon as you're up and about for you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Fair warning, though… he's been promising me a 'special meal' for a month. I'm starting to believe it's his way of asking for a date… so, yeah."

Miranda laughed. "Well, I guess you can just tell him thanks but no thanks for me. Best of luck on your end, though."

Kelly smiled. "Yeah. Feel kind of bad turning him down, but… not going to happen."

Miranda handed the datapad with her work over to Kelly. "He'll find someone eventually. We all do, sooner or later."

Kelly blushed a little. "Speaking of… I actually was hoping I could talk to you about something."

Miranda looked puzzled. "Of course. What can I do for you?"

Kelly looked down a little. "Actually, I was hoping I could talk to you about something… personal. Woman to woman."

Miranda felt uneasy. While she had come to like Kelly, she still wasn't comfortable talking to people about personal issues, and even more unsure how to handle someone asking HER for advice. Still, she would do whatever she could. "Sure, Kelly. What's going on?"

"Well, it's a little awkward to bring up, but… I've found myself… well, attracted to someone I shouldn't be attracted to."

"Oh. Well… I hope this isn't your crush on Shepard resurfacing," Miranda said cautiously.

Kelly almost jumped off the crate. "Oh, no, not at all. I realized it was just a dumb little crush long ago. Especially with Ash being on board, no, nothing like that."

Miranda smiled. "Good. Because not only is there no chance of anyone but Ash being with Shepard, she also packs a mean right cross, and I'd hate for you to experience that."

Kelly smiled. "Thanks… but, what should I do?"

Miranda paused for a moment, considering. "Well, I guess it would depend on who it is."

Kelly shook her head. "I couldn't name any names. I wouldn't want to run the risk of embarrassing them or anything like that."

Miranda nodded. She could completely understand Kelly's situation. Whatever feelings she had started to develop for Jack were best kept to herself, in case she happened to slip and embarrass the woman. _Or WOULD it embarrass her? _She certainly had noticed Jack's softening towards her, and, in the rare moment, thought she saw Jack out of the corner of her eye staring at her.

"Well… I think if I were you, I'd probably wait until I had some signals as to whether or not they reciprocated your feelings. No need to simply sit back and wait, though, see if you can send some discreet signals out there."

"Like what?"

Miranda had to force herself not to laugh at Kelly's entirely child-like innocence. "Well, I'm not the expert, but... I would say find reasons to see the other person. Get them a cup of coffee, something like that."

Kelly nodded. "I've done that. I mean, we get along great, we're friends, even. But, I don't want to cause any disruption in the crew, especially with this mission. But, I also can't stop thinking about them. I do everything I can to stay busy, but..."

"... you keep thinking about what it would be like?"

Kelly blushed. "Yeah. I've always been the 'you only live once' type of person, so normally, sure, why not go for it? But on the Normandy, you can't avoid someone if it turns awkward, you know?"

Miranda nodded. The same thought kept coming to her mind whenever she thought about Jack. "You're right. But, at the same time, no one's being forced into this mission. If something goes wrong, and the two of you can't be around each other... they can always leave if they can't get over it."

Kelly nodded grimly. "Yeah, you're right. I'd hate to lose anyone, but you're right. Only live once, right? And if the reapers have their way, not for much longer. So... you only live once. No sense in delaying anything, right?"

Miranda nodded, smiling at the younger woman. "Right." Miranda was suddenly struck by something. "Kelly?"

She regarded Miranda cautiously. "Yes?"

Miranda locked her eyes on Kelly's. "I've known you're a smart woman for a while. But I never knew you how smart you really are until just now."

Kelly swallowed. She was ready for Miranda to rip her head off for figuring out what their conversation had really been about. But she was surprised at what she said next.

Miranda smiled. "I'm not upset, just… surprised. It makes me wonder what else you might have picked up on."

Kelly sighed, and looked down. "Ok, I have a confession to make. I know about you and Shepard, how he turned you down." She saw Miranda start to interrupt her, but continued, "but no one else does. There might be rumors, but nothing more than normal shipboard rumors. They also think I propositioned Joker. I didn't," she added hastily, "but there will always be rumors."

Miranda nodded. No matter what ship or facility she had worked in, rumors like that always cropped up. "You're right, though, I did. I thought I was in love, or as close to it as I'd ever come." Miranda thought back to the time before the Collector's base. She was thankful that he had turned her down, as she counted him as a close and dear friend. "I was wrong," she added quietly.

Kelly couldn't help but pursue it. "... and now?"

Miranda blinked, then looked over to her. "I... don't know, to tell you the truth."

Kelly smiled, then stood up. "Well, I should be getting back to work."

Miranda nodded. "Me too. But Kelly," she said as Kelly got up to leave, "You'll keep this just between us?"

Kelly nodded. "Of course, ma'am."

"No need to ma'am me, Kelly. We're well past that," Miranda said, realizing just how fond of the woman she had become.

Kelly, for her part, just nodded, smiled a bit, and left medbay.

_Never a dull moment around here,_ thought Miranda as she turned to the osd.

* * *

><p>It was night aboard the Normandy. Shepard and Ash had led a team down to the planet they were now orbiting, Kranis, and had captured a large cache of prothean weapons and data caches, which were getting ready to be smuggled into the Traverse by a group of Blue Suns mercenaries. They stood no match for the whole strike team, who took them down in minutes. Tali and Legion were now going over the caches in the main cargo bay, while Jacob and Mordin were going over the weapons to see if they could develop any upgrades that could be applied to their equipment. Ash and Shepard were splitting their time between the two teams and going over the galaxy map to get their next destination planned.<p>

The rest of the ship, though, was experiencing the deep quiet that comes after a long, stressful day. Even the night crew was barely making any sound. It was in this quiet that Jack slipped out of her quarters to go up to the Crew deck, where medbay was located. She was hoping that no one would see her, but as soon as the elevator doors opened, she saw she was out of luck.

Ash stood there, with a slightly surprised look on her face. Obviously, she wasn't expecting to run into Jack this late. Jack quietly walked onto the elevator, while Ash remained. She was obviously coming from the cargo bay where Tali and Legion were working to go up to the CIC deck where Shepard would undoubtedly be. Jack hit the controls to take her to the crew deck.

After a brief awkward pause, Jack turned to Ash. "Hey, I, um… just wanna say thanks. For you and Shepard taking the time to do this for me. It, ah… means a lot."

Ash didn't let her surprise at Jack's words show. Instead, she smiled slightly at the obviously uncomfortable woman. "It's not a problem at all, Jack. John and I are of a like mind when it comes to our crew; we would do anything for them." Ash's smile spread wider. "And that also goes for our friends."

Jack suddenly looked down. She didn't understand why, at the mention of the word "friend" her stomach had knotted up, but it did. She couldn't remember the last time someone had called her a friend.

"Well… thanks, Ash."

Jack was immediately grateful that the doors opened to the crew deck. Jack fairly flew out of the elevator, leaving behind a bemused Ash. _Wait 'til John hears about this,_ she thought to herself as the doors closed.

Jack stood for a moment outside the elevator. _What the hell was that? _She had been doing and saying things lately that she didn't understand, and it was really confusing her. Like the reason she was going to medbay. It was late, and she knew Miranda was probably asleep, but she felt… compelled, to see her. Though she didn't have much more information than she had had this morning, she felt like she had to see her.

She looked around the corner. _Good,_ she thought to herself. _No one's around._ It was unlikely that anyone would be sitting in the mess relaxing at this hour, but it wasn't unreasonable that someone on the night shift would be grabbing a cup of coffee to keep themselves awake. She quietly moved towards the door to medbay when she realized that something didn't feel right. It was then that she realized she had left her boots in her room. Why she had even taken them off was beyond her, since she usually left them on all the time, even sleeping in them. It was rare that she went barefoot, usually only when she was trying to sneak up on an enemy. And although Miranda had, at one point, fit that description, she couldn't be considered an enemy now.

She shrugged. Too late to go back to her room to put her boots on, and it would be pointless anyways. She came up to the door to medbay, and quietly opened the door. The lights in medbay were off, with only the faint blue and white light from the crew deck filtering through the large windows. Chakwas usually kept the windows slightly opaque when there was a patient in medbay, giving them a modicum of privacy.

Jack saw Miranda lying on the second bed in. She was fast asleep. Jack walked over to the bed and sat down on the crate next to it that she had brought over earlier. She looked at Miranda, how her pale skin looked even paler in the ghostly low light, and how the normal arrogant smirk that she wore when she was awake faded to a peaceful smile in her sleep. _Definitely an improvement, _Jack caught herself thinking. The alarm bells were all screaming at her in her head, but for some reason, she stayed sitting there.

She didn't understand why, but she wanted to stay. _What the hell is going on with me? Why am I up here? Why am I sitting here, watching Miranda sleep?_ The thoughts were running through her head, and she assumed that the confusion was why her heart had started pounding in her chest. Despite wearing just her normal leather harness and half-undone flight suit, she felt flushed.

As she sat there, she knew she had never seen anyone more desirable than Miranda. After all, she had been genetically engineered to be perfect, and, appearance-wise, Jack couldn't help but think that they had achieved what they were looking for. Jack wasn't sure exactly what she was thinking, but her attention kept getting drawn to Miranda's lips. She couldn't help but imagine what they felt like.

_What the hell? Stop thinking that, _Jack told herself. But despite her best efforts, she kept picturing what it would be like to feel her lips against Miranda's.

Jack couldn't understand why she had these thoughts in her head. Yes, she and Miranda had been working together rather closely to investigate the Cerberus facilities in recent weeks, but that didn't explain why she was here. If she ever wanted anyone, she had them, and that was that. The only person to turn her down had been Shepard, and, if rumours were to be believed, that was another thing she and Miranda had in common.

Besides, it was only a few months ago they had tried to kill each other. After the operation on Pragia, Jack had confronted Miranda in her quarters, demanding that she admit that Cerberus was wrong for what they had done to her there. Miranda, of course, had refused, and they had gotten into a fight that had only been stopped by Shepard intervening. _Otherwise_, Jack admitted to herself, _we probably would've killed each other, and taken half the ship with us._ Between each of their biotic abilities, she had no doubt that a full out fight between the two of them would have been disastrous to the ship, and probably would have ended up killing most of the crew.

But now, here she was, watching the same woman she had honestly tried to kill sleep peacefully, and couldn't repress the desire to kiss her. _It's a long way from some of the thoughts I've had about her._ From her initial desire to bioticly blast her flesh from her bones, to her grudging respect to her battlefield prowess, and now to this…

_Whatever this is, it's fucking annoying._ She wanted this to go away. For her entire life, she had always given in to temptation, whether for drugs, sex, violence, stealing, it didn't matter; if she wanted something, she took it. Kelly had said that it was because she was "pure id," whatever that meant. Jack only knew that it was one of the reasons she had stayed alive on her own for so long. But now, she found herself resisting.

Lost in her thoughts, she hadn't even noticed her hand rise up to Miranda's face, almost as if it had a life of its own. She watched as her hand traced Miranda's forehead, around her brow, and down her cheekbone. She felt an odd anticipation as her hand reached Miranda's lips, and she realized that however soft she assumed they would be, they felt even better.

Her finger slightly pulled Miranda's lower lip as she felt the slightly softer skin, and the slight moisture behind the content smile Miranda was wearing. Jack quickly pulled her hand back, relieved that the sudden motion didn't wake Miranda. She couldn't understand why, but she traced her own lips with the same finger that had been tracing Miranda's. As she did, she felt a thrill that, she admitted, was better than any drug or sexual experience she had had up to this point in her life.

Now, her only thought was to kiss Miranda, to feel those soft lips pressed against her own. She stopped herself, though. This sudden rush was making her head spin, and she knew she shouldn't be here. She knew, though, that she wouldn't be able to think about anything else until she had kissed the former Cerberus operative.

_Well, what the fuck. If it's the only way to stop this, then fine. _She slowly leaned forward towards Miranda while the warning bells in her heard got louder and louder, until they were almost screaming at her. For half a second, she hovered above Miranda, their lips not even touching, before finally completing the kiss. For a moment, there was only silence in her mind as she focused on the soft warmth coming from Miranda, and the electric feeling that was coursing through her body at the touch. Jack's eyes had closed as she laid the soft, almost chaste, kiss onto Miranda.

Suddenly, the mental warnings in Jack's head came back in full force and her eyes flew open. She couldn't tell if she was imagining it or not, but she had felt Miranda's lips purse back and return the kiss. She quickly broke away from her and scrambled to the door, cursing herself for her weakness.

On the bed, Miranda's eye slowly opened. She heard the door to medbay open, and saw Jack run out of the door. She wondered why Jack had been there, but decided she'd wonder about it in the morning. Drowsily, she noticed the slight wetness on her lips, and realized as she fell asleep that the two were connected.

* * *

><p><strong>So, there's chapter 3, where the plot thickens... *cue dramatic music*<strong>

**As part of my full disclosure, the scene between Zaeed and Jack and Miranda and Kelly were written post ME3. I'm just noting that because I have some stuff later on that's pretty close to ME3 that was written BEFORE the game came out, so I'm just covering everything here. :-)**

**I promise it won't be so long until my next update, especially since the next big chunk is done and ready to post... but that'll be next weekend!**


	4. I figured we could both use some coffee

**So here we go, chapter 4! Thanks again everyone for all the kind words and support!**

**Anyways, here we go, big step forwards here!**

**Bioware owns the characters, but their immortal souls are mine... MINE!**

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK! _Jack screamed at herself. She had made her way back to her room without being seen by anyone, luckily enough, but now she felt trapped. _What the FUCK was that you stupid cunt? _Jack didn't know what to do. If Miranda had woken up, then there was no doubt that she'd humiliate her. She's never put herself in this kind of position before. _I could just kill myself, _she thought, but knew that wasn't an option.

She'd have to leave the ship. That was the only other option. _Unless she wasn't awake, then nobody would know about this. Stop panicking, you dumb slut._ Calling herself names had always been the way to get herself to calm down when she was upset about something. She hated it when she lost her cool.

She decided to just calm down. She'd play it cool. Chances were that Miranda had been completely asleep and had no idea what happened. If she said anything about it, Jack would just tell her she had imagined it, and then she would decide what to do then. She knew she'd leave the ship, but didn't want to. Oddly enough, she had started to consider the Normandy her home, at least as much of a home as she'd ever had, and didn't want to go back to living on the run.

She sat down on her bed. _How the hell could you have let this happen?_ She sighed. As usual, she had a good thing going, and she had figured out a way to screw it all up. She reached for the bottle of batarian whiskey that she had. _Might as well get piss drunk and try to forget about this night._

Try as she might, and even with all of the yelling at herself she had done, the memory of Miranda's lips against her own, and the way that it had made her feel, kept coming back to her. She found herself experiencing the same electric feeling she had felt during the kiss, like when her biotics were fully charged, though this feeling was under her skin instead of flowing over it.

She looked down at the half empty bottle. _This is not going to be nearly enough tonight, _she thought miserably.

It was three weeks later. Miranda was in her office, fully recovered from her broken ankle. They had been getting several leads in hunting down ways to fight the reapers, so the mission she and Jack had been handling had been put on the back burner for now, though Miranda was a little nervous that they would never get back to it. Not because Ash and Shepard wouldn't allow them the time, but because Jack had been avoiding her since the incident in medbay. While Miranda had barely been conscious, she knew what had happened.

She had decided not to talk to Jack about it. Obviously, Jack was embarrassed, or ashamed about it, and Miranda didn't want to push the issue, though she had found herself on several occasions, late at night in her bed, trying to remember what it felt like. She had been mostly asleep when it happened, so she couldn't exactly recall it, but she remembered it being gentle and soft, so unlike most of her past liaisons.

She fought with herself about the event: part of her just wanted to put it behind her and move on with their mission, but the other part wished she was fully awake when it had happened. She would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that she become attracted to Jack, though she couldn't fully understand or explain why. She certainly always had been attracted to confidence, which typically Jack had in no short supply, and part of her was fascinated with tattoos, which Jack also had in no short supply.

She had always refrained from classifying herself as bisexual, though she had been with both men and women in the past. She had always been attracted to the person, rather than the gender. Though she had never been in a relationship that lasted too long, in fact her last relationship had been with Jacob and that had been little more than a tryst, the desire for one was still there. The logical part of her brain knew that the likelihood of an actual relationship with Jack was impossible, though the emotional part that she always fought to control was telling her to see what could happen if she went down to engineering and reciprocated the kiss.

Right now, though, she was at her desk going over the information that they had on the facilities. The one encrypted file from Persius was still a source of frustration; though she had tried everything she could to decode it. None of the normal Cerberus codes had been used on it, and, despite their best efforts, neither Legion, Tali, nor Garrus had been able to help with it.

Until they got to the facility on Gaid, there was little more they could do. She stood from her desk, and decided to take a shower to try to ease some of the tension out of her shoulders. Sometimes, having her quarters and office all combined led her to putting in very long hours working, and she wouldn't realize it until all of a sudden a cramp would hit her. She figured a nice hot shower and a cup of coffee afterwards would help her relax. Maybe she would try to talk with Jack afterwards. At the very least, they were trying to run an operation together, and they couldn't do that if they were avoiding each other.

As Miranda was in the shower between her office and bedroom, she thought she heard her door open and shut. She waited to hear if anyone called out to her, and, after hearing nothing, figured that she had just imagined it. She finished her shower, and tossed on what had become her default casual clothes of a grey tank top and black pants. She stepped out of the bathroom while still toweling off her hair, when she realized she hadn't been hearing things.

Sitting on her desk, with a small red bow, was a datapad. As she walked over to it, she saw a small hand-written note under the bow:

_I found the key to decoding that file you and Jack had. Please don't ask how I was able to get it. _

_-K_

Miranda smiled for a moment. Their master thief had come through. _Coffee can wait for a bit, _Miranda thought as she settled down to finally read the file. She opened it up, and her slight amusement and anticipation were soon drowned in an ocean of horror and disgust. Her hand reflexively covered her mouth, and she had to fight back the tears so she could continue reading.

She got through as much as she could before she had to get out of her room. The walls were closing in, and a fetid stench was starting to permeate everything. She grabbed the datapad, and ran out of her room. She didn't know where she was going, until she found herself on the engineering deck, staring down the steps leading to Jack's area. She took a breath, and went down the stairs, focusing on feeling the cold metal deck plates under bare feet to calm herself.

When she got to the bottom, she came over to Jack's room. There was no one there. She couldn't think of what to do. She was almost shocked. She needed her. "Jack?" Her voice was wavering, and she processed that she sounded much more pathetic than she intended. She stood there for a moment, feeling completely lost. She called out again, more desperately, "Jack?" After still not receiving an answer, she turned to leave, only to find Jack standing there, a look of panicked confusion on her face as she looked at Miranda.

Relief flooded through her. She held the datapad out to Jack, her hand shaking. "I… I found out what that file was…" She couldn't go on. Jack hurried to her, and took the datapad. She saw it was an email from the head of the facility on Gaid, followed by some other files detailing experiments, test results, and autopsy results.

_From: ***********_

_To: **********_

_Sir,_

_It is with many thanks that we accept your assistance with our project. I know that with the recent falling out between you and our employer that you do not do so lightly, however, I believe our goals are mutually beneficial. I don't need to tell you of the benefits that your Legacy Foundation can have on our research. By providing genetically identical, and perfect, test subjects, you are enabling us to push our research in a more stable and predictable direction. With the stability of the new test subjects, I am confident that we will have a breakthrough soon._

_I am happy to accept the first seven subjects to our Persius facility. Of course, you are familiar with our project; once we develop an effective method of enhancing latent biotic abilities, we apply it to our main test subject, and then test its effectiveness with the other enhancements already in place. Thus far, we've been forced to deal with one subject zero per facility, however, the genetically engineered specimens you are providing, while not sufficient for your means, will prove invaluable in being able to further our research. _

_Again, Mr. Lawson, I cannot express my thanks that you are assisting our facilities. I will, of course, use all discretion in our communications and will refrain from mentioning your support to anyone not associated with the project. Your operatives have set me up with your own decryption filters, so not even my employer will be able to intercept these communiqués, something I know we are both thankful for._

_Again, I am in your debt for this tremendous service._

_Thank you,_

_Dr. Nathaniel Mathers_

_Head of Research, project Topaz_

Jack's mouth hung open. She looked up to Miranda, who was still fighting back her tears. "Those test subjects… those seven subject zeroes… were my sisters! My father… it could've been me… or Oriana… God… they were my sisters!"

Miranda finally broke down. She unabashedly started sobbing, unable to control herself any longer. The thought that her sister, whom she risked everything for, could have been the test subject for the kind of experiments made her physically ill.

Jack stood, dumbfounded. She didn't know what to do. Reflexively, she reached out and wrapped her arms around the former Cerberus agent. She felt the sobs wracking her body, and the warm tears were pouring down Miranda's face, down Jack's shoulder and down her chest. She stood there for a moment, not truly what to do. She'd never been in this position before; being the one someone reached out to for comfort. No one in her past had ever broken down like this, and Jack herself certainly never had.

Reacting to some instinct she didn't realize she had, Jack slowly maneuvered Miranda closer to the bed, so the two of them could sit. She felt Miranda's hand reach up and clutch onto Jack's harness, holding herself tighter to Jack.

_What the fuck am I supposed to do? _Jack was nearly panicking. The revelation of what was going on had hit her like a charging krogan, but the realization that the children that had been experimented on had been Miranda's, for lack for a better term, sisters, infuriated her. She felt rage at Miranda's father for doing that, just because some of his attempts at making the "perfect" daughter had failed. She wanted to tear him apart atom by atom, and had a sneaking suspicion that she and Miranda could do it.

But Miranda had always been strong and in control. To see her like this… for the first time she could ever recall, Jack was upset _on behalf_ of someone else. She was upset because Miranda was. She told herself to think about that later. Right now, she had to do something with Miranda.

Miranda's sobbing had quieted down to the point of being almost silent. Jack could still feel her tears streaming down her chest, but not nearly as much as just moments before. She slowly moved Miranda away from her, looking down at her. The little amount of eyeliner that Miranda wore was smeared down her cheeks, and her eyes were bloodshot from crying. Miranda looked up to Jack, and looked her dead in the eye. "Jack, I want to kill them all. I want to rip them apart. I want to make them pay."

Jack was surprised at the venom in Miranda's voice, though she had to admit that she understood it. What Miranda did next though, was even more surprising.

Miranda tightened her grip on Jack's harness and pulled Jack into her. Her lips found Jack's, and she kissed her passionately, almost desperately. Jack felt her insides go cold at first, as the shock overwhelmed her. After a moment, though, she responded to Miranda's kiss, and her hands went from gently holding onto Miranda's arms to pressing against her back, trying to press her even closer.

After a moment, Miranda pulled Jack down onto the bed so they were each on their side. Miranda finally released her hold on Jack's harness, and she wrapped her arms around Jack's waist. Jack's hands ran up and down Miranda's back, and she started running her one hand through Miranda's long, dark hair. Their tongues fought for dominance, and each could feel the other's body heat as they continued to try to get closer to one another.

After a few moments of their intense making out, Jack felt Miranda ease up against her, and slowly pull her mouth away from hers. "Jack…" Miranda whispered. Jack mentally braced herself for the inevitable rejection. _'We shouldn't be doing this, this is wrong.' You stupid bitch, how could you let yourself be put in this situation? You deserve it. _The thoughts came unbidden, but part of her knew it was to steel herself against what she knew Miranda would have to say to her.

"Jack… thank you." Jack couldn't believe what she had just heard.

"What?"

"Thank you," Miranda replied, wearily. "Thank you for being here… for not leaving after… after med bay."

Miranda felt so tired. She nuzzled up closer to Jack, with her face resting in the space near the other woman's neck and shoulder. She felt so safe there, so comfortable. Almost immediately, she had drifted off to sleep.

Jack, meanwhile, was almost frozen in place. _She HAD been awake!_ But if Miranda had been awake, why didn't she do anything about it? _Well, it's not like you've been giving her much chance, dumbass, _she thought to herself. After she had kissed Miranda in med bay, she had been trying to avoid everyone, half expecting Miranda to have told everyone what had happened. She hadn't, though, and Jack had slowly eased back to just staying in her quarters, and only hiding if someone tried to come down to see her. _The benefits of having two exits to choose from, _she had figured. She had done the same thing just moments ago, when she heard Miranda coming down the stairs.

But now… Jack had no idea what to do. _Get up and run away, shit-for-brains_, she mentally yelled at herself. But she couldn't. She WANTED to stay here, on her small cot, with Miranda sleeping next to her. It felt good to hold her close, and to feel her soft, warm breath on her neck and shoulder.

_This is just going to fuck everything up. _Jack made a mental note to tell herself to shut up. If anything happened, she could always make sure that Miranda knew that she had been the one who initiated the kiss. _It won't come to that… I hope. _

With a whirlwind of emotions going through her, she settled herself against Miranda, deciding to enjoy the moment while it lasted. Because, even in her most optimistic times, Jack knew good things didn't last long.

Jack woke up alone. That in and of itself was nothing unusual, but as soon as her brain started firing, she remembered the previous night. Miranda had come to see her, in obvious distress after finding out her father had "donated" several of Miranda's genetic twins to the same project that Jack had been a part of. Miranda had broken down, and, after a few moments, had kissed Jack.

_More than kissed,_ Jack thought to herself. But it was obvious to Jack that Miranda thought if it as a mistake, an emotional overreaction to being upset. _Whatever, of course she's gone. Why the hell would I want her to still be here? It's not like she means anything to me. _Jack felt a pang of regret for thinking that. She had to admit to herself that, on some level, Miranda meant something to her. She suddenly felt herself tear up at the thought that Miranda had left her before she woke up. _Well, obviously, I don't mean anything to her, so fuck her. _The thought settled like a lead weight in her gut. She intended to lie there on her cot for awhile longer, at least until she could figure out what to do.

A low sound and the faint smell of coffee stirred her closer to consciousness, though. Jack finally opened her eyes, and found herself staring at Miranda, who was leaning against the table with two cups of coffee in her hands. "Sorry, I couldn't sleep anymore, and I figured we could both use some coffee."

Jack slowly sat up in the bed and took the cup of coffee Miranda offered her. She suddenly felt incredibly stupid and immature for having been upset, as well as completely confused as to what to do next.

Miranda sat down next to Jack on the bed, and looked into her coffee cup for a moment. "I know those girls weren't my actual sisters, more like clones, but I consider them my sisters, just as much as I consider Oriana to be my sister. Regardless of my relation to them, no one deserves to go through what happened to them… or to you. When I think about all those things that you were put through, all in the name of furthering humanity… I can't believe I was associated with the people who did that."

Jack also found something intensely interesting in her coffee, and wouldn't look up when she responded. "I've never had anything like a family. I wouldn't know what to do if I had one. And in my experience, there's no such thing as a friend, only someone that hasn't fucked you over yet. I know how pissed off I get when I get fucked over and betrayed by people I thought I could rely on. Last night… I felt that same way, but because someone did that to you."

Miranda looked over to Jack, who was already looking at Miranda. "Jack… I…"

"Shepard to Miranda and Jack, you guys there?" Shepard's voice came over the ship's PA system.

"Yeah, we're here. What's up?" Jack managed to put on her normal bravado in order to answer Shepard, despite what her face showed Miranda.

"We're in orbit over Liara's ship. We found some information down here that we think you two need to see. We sent the Kodiak back to pick you up. It'll be there in ten minutes."

"Thanks, we'll be ready."

Miranda sighed. "It looks like duty is calling. We'd better get ready."

"… yeah, I guess so," came Jack's quiet response, as Miranda stood up from the bed.

Miranda looked back down at Jack, and saw the almost sullen look on her face. "Jack… just because I was upset last night… doesn't mean I didn't want to do what we did. Maybe we can talk about it a little more when we get back?"

Jack looked up to Miranda, as a wave of relief surged through her. "Yeah, sounds good."

Miranda smiled. "Come on, let's go."

Miranda and Jack walked down the hallway of Liara T'soni's hidden base of operations. The headquarters of the Shadow Broker had an inhospitable feel to it, it was dark, and the surfaces were all angled and pointed. It was only once they got to Liara's "office" that they saw the influence of the newest Shadow Broker. The walls, first off, had been painted a muted blue, with purple fabric hanging from the corners down to the floor. In the center of the room was a large spherical frame with thick cords running from its center up to the ceiling.

"Looks like someone's been redecorating" Jack said as they walked in. They saw Ash, Shepard, and Liara all over by one terminal to the left.

Miranda and Jack walked over. Both Ash and Shepard had rather grim expressions on their faces, while Liara looked on with an almost regretful expression. "What's up, guys?" Jack's voice brought all three's attention to her.

"We thought you should see this. It seems that the old Shadow Broker was compiling information on people associated with me." Shepard pointed at the terminal. "Former commanding officers, former crew members… and current crew members as well."

Jack and Miranda moved to look at the screen. There, they saw a complete list of the entire Strike Team, including themselves.

"Everyone has some sensitive information listed in here," Ash took over for Shepard, "and everyone will be told what's here, but we felt you two should see some of this in person. We weren't going to risk transmitting it to the Normandy. We can show you each on your own, if you'd like."

Jack and Miranda looked at each other. Jack just shrugged. "Whatever, doesn't matter to me."

Miranda looked back to the three of them. "We're here, no point in sending one of us out to the hallway now."

Shepard nodded, and turned to the terminal. Miranda's file was pulled up first. She saw the folders containing the personal messages from the dating service, and was thankful that Shepard skipped over those. He did, however, pull up the conversation she had had with Oriana, and a chill went down her spine. "He knew about my sister? How much did he know… did he find her?"

Liara shook her head. "In all of the records here, that is the only mention of her. You did a very good job in protecting her."

Liara's assurance did little comfort Miranda, though. She was even more concerned, though, when Shepard pulled up the conversation she had had with the doctor regarding her… condition.

"Please, John… close that file." Shepard looked over, and saw Miranda fighting back the tears. He quickly closed the file, knowing that Miranda already knew what it was. Miranda closed her eyes, and collected her thoughts. "I never really wanted a family outright; I just always wanted to have the option. Because of the way I was engineered, I'll never be able to. Nor will Oriana, though I haven't had the heart to tell her yet. Something else I can thank my father for."

For a moment, everyone was silent. Responding to some instinct, Jack quietly slipped her hand into Miranda's, and squeezed it tight. Miranda reciprocated Jack's touch, and was immediately grateful to her for reaching out. She exhaled slowly, and looked at everyone. "I'm ok, just… embarrassed."

Ash shook her head. "You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I just wish… that there was something we could do."

Miranda smiled faintly. "Thanks, Ash. I appreciate it. But, it's my lot in life, and I've learned to live with it."

They all stood for a moment in silence before Shepard moved back to the terminal. He pulled up Jack's folder, and scrolled over some of reports of her getting kicked out of extranet gambling rooms, which almost elicited a chuckle from everyone. She tensed when he scrolled over the poem she had submitted. It was one of the few times she had opened herself up to someone else, and she had been rejected. She was slightly confused when Shepard pulled up a video file. It showed some woman she had never seen before, sitting in a doctor's office.

Jack looked on as she saw the doctor and the woman she quickly found out was her mother talk. The doctor was speaking to the woman about her baby daughter. Jack reached up, almost as if she could touch the woman's face. "Mom?" The whisper barely escaped her throat.

As the video progressed, the doctor told the woman that the baby had suffered a seizure and died during a routine checkup, and asked her to donate the baby's body. As the grieving woman was helped out of the room, the doctor made a call using the office comm, discussing the project that would ultimately lead to Jack's upbringing.

As the video ended, everyone stood in silence. Only Jack's rough breathing could be heard. "That was… my… mom…"

They all saw the tears falling from Jack's eyes. Miranda felt Jack's hand go limp in her own, and Jack slowly pulled her arms back and wrapped them around herself.

Liara stepped forward, and spoke to Jack. "If you want, I have the most advanced facial recognition software available. I can try to find her."

Jack didn't respond. She slowly started to back away, and then took off and ran out of the room. "Jack!" Miranda's call did nothing to stop her.

Miranda spared a moment to address Liara. "Please, see if you can find her. And, thank you, all of you." She then quickly ran after Jack, while the remaining three stood there; silent and grim witnesses to two women's personal tragedies.

"Jack!" Miranda called through the halls of Liara's base. To say she was concerned would be an understatement. Given Jack's normally unstable frame of mind, one could barely be sure of how she'd react in a normal situation, but after seeing the video from when she had been taken from her family, there would be no telling what she would do. Miranda only hoped that she could find her before she did anything too rash.

As Miranda rounded a corner, she heard a quiet sobbing. She followed the sound to what, at one point, had been the former Shadow Broker's torture chamber. Jack sat on the chair, curled into a ball. Miranda slowly entered the room, careful not to startle her. "Jack?"

For a moment, Jack didn't respond. Finally, she looked up at Miranda. Her tears had run down her face, leaving dark trails of eyeliner in their wake. She pulled herself together long enough to pour everything she was feeling into one simple sentence: "I could've been normal."

Those four words broke Miranda's heart. She slowly walked into the room, and, when Jack didn't flee, moved towards the chair and sat down next to Jack. Jack looked at her for a brief moment, (and) then broke down in sobs. Miranda wrapped the shorter woman in her arms, and held her close.

They stayed like that for what seemed like forever, to Miranda. She gently rubbed the back of Jack's shaved head, unsure of how to comfort her. Eventually, Jack stopped crying, though she made no move to leave Miranda's embrace. Eventually, she slowly, cautiously, wrapped her own arms around Miranda's waist, pulling her closer.

"Miranda?"

"Yes Jack?"

"I want to go back to the ship… will you go with me?"

The almost childlike way Jack asked her this made Miranda smile. "Of course I will. Come on, I'll get a quick message to Shepard and Ash, and we'll go back."

They slowly stood up from the chair, and Miranda sent a message through her omni-tool to Shepard. They slowly made their way back to the docking bay, where they boarded the Kodiak for the short ride back up to the Normandy. The entire ride, Jack wouldn't let go of Miranda's hand, clutching it tight enough where Miranda could feel Jack's nails slightly digging into her hand.

Once they got to the Normandy, and walked from the shuttle to the docking back, Miranda hesitated. She didn't want to take Jack back to her dungeon-like quarters near Engineering, but knew Jack wouldn't want to sit in the mess hall. Deciding quickly, she took jack to the elevator, and hit the button to take it up a deck to the Crew deck. Jack didn't say anything, but she looked at Miranda quizzically. Once the doors opened, Miranda led Jack to her quarters, and quietly sealed the door behind them.

Jack stood in Miranda's office. The first time she had been in here, she had almost killed Miranda. Now… she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do here. She was glad that Miranda had brought her here rather than her own quarters, though. Right now, she didn't want to feel hidden away, or pushed to the side. Just by being in Miranda's brightly lit room, she felt more… normal.

Miranda walked up to Jack, and took her by the hand. She slowly led her over to her bed in the back of the room, and pulled her down so that they were lying facing each other. Miranda still saw the hurt and confusion in Jack's eyes. She slowly reached her arms around Jack, and pulled her close. Jack's eyes closed, and Miranda kissed them, and then kissed her forehead. Jack's hands reached up and clutched Miranda's white cat suit.

"She… she cared…" came Jack's quiet voice. "She didn't want to lose me… all these years, I had told myself that they didn't care when I was stolen. It made it easier to deal with. Now… now I don't know what to think, what to feel."

Miranda held Jack closer to her. She could only hope to understand what was going through Jack's mind right now. Unlike her, Miranda knew for a fact that her father hadn't wanted her. He had wanted an heir to his empire, not a daughter. She would do anything to find out that she actually had been wanted, had been loved. In a way, she was a bit jealous of Jack.

"Do you want to see if we can find them?"

Jack thought about it for a moment. "I… don't know right now. Let me think about it."

Miranda started to lightly rub the back of Jack's neck and head. "Of course. Think about it as long as you need to."

Jack felt safe in Miranda's arms, a feeling she can't remember having in a long time. All of the hurt, and fear, it was all replaced by a warm feeling. She didn't want to have this feeling go away, she wanted to stay right there forever. She found herself saying something that she never, in all her years, had said before. "Will you just hold me for awhile?"

Miranda smiled. "Of course, Jack. Anything you want."

**So, there we are, new territory of these two. **

**Let me know what you think!**

**Coming up... nightmares and reunions!**


	5. I have a surprise for you

**Sorry for the delay everyone, I really have no excuses for why this took so long to polish up, especially since it was pretty much complete some time ago.**

**Anyways, here we are, continuing the journey of everyone's favourite ex-Cerberus operative and emotionally damaged career criminal.**

**I don't own the characters, but... ok, sorry, no witty comment this time. :-)**

* * *

><p>Three days later, The Normandy was underway to Omega to check some of their leads with Aria T'lock, the de facto head of state for Omega. The stop at Liara's headquarters had proved very fruitful, and the team had decided to head to Omega to pick-up some supplies, and take advantage of Shepard's friendly relationship with Aria to see if they could use some of her resources to follow up on some of the information Liara was able to get them. In the meantime, Miranda had been using her time to try to find out more about the project Jack had been put through, and this EcoGen that had supplied the bases her sisters had been at. So far, she didn't have much, but she had some contacts on Omega as well, and would follow up with them.<p>

She was at her desk going over the minutia of crew assignments and requisition forms when Shepard and Ash walked in. They had a stack of OSDs with them.

"Shepard, Ash, what can I do for you?"

Shepard handed her an OSD. "This contains all of the files the Shadow Broker had on you. Liara moved them all over to this datapad, and then wiped them from her databanks. We wanted to make sure that they don't fall into the wrong hands."

Miranda silently took the datapad from Shepard. She looked at it for a moment, and then set it down. "Thank you for doing this. And for telling us in person."

"Of course, Miranda. Everyone is getting the files on them as well. What they decide to do with it is up to them. We just felt that yours and Jack's was the most delicate, and didn't want to surprise you with it."

Miranda nodded. She had an intense respect for Shepard, and his discretion in matter like this was above reproach. "If I may… may I have Jack's datapad? I already know what's on there from our trip down, and I may be able to help with some of it for her."

Shepard smiled slightly. "Of course, Miranda." He went through the OSDs that he had, then pulled Jack's out and handed it to Miranda.

"Thank you." Miranda looked down to the datapad, for a moment anticipating that Shepard and Ash would be leaving. She looked back up when she realized they hadn't moved. "Was there something else?"

Shepard and Ash looked at each other for a moment, before Shepard spoke again. "Miranda… we don't know what's going on between you and Jack, and it's really none of our business. But you both seem… happy."

Miranda smiled slightly as she thought about the bald biotic that she had come to care for. Suddenly, the smile dropped from her face as she looked up to Shepard and Ash. "Wait… you know? How?"

Ash smiled as she took Shepard's hand in her own. "You're talking to two people who had to hide a shipboard romance for over a month. We know what to look for. Don't worry, I don't think anyone else knows, and we won't tell."

Miranda relaxed a little. "Thanks… I don't really know what we are right now, but I promise…"

Shepard cut her off. "You don't owe us any sort of promise. We both know that you and Jack will be ready when it comes time to fight the reapers. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to find some happiness in the meantime."

"Thanks. And thanks for keeping this quiet. Jack and I… we're both kind of fumbling through this. We appreciate it."

At that moment, Miranda's terminal beeped to let her know she had a new message. She quickly opened it, then let her head drop into her hands. "Evidently, you're not the only ones who know what to look for."

Shepard and Ash looked quizzically to each other, until Miranda spun her screen around so they could see. The newest message was from Mordin, and was titled "Inventive uses for Mass Effect fields."

"Shepard, Ash… I'm going to have to kill him. I just wanted to let you know."

The two Spectres started to laugh at Miranda's comment. Miranda glowered at them. "Just let me know when we get to Omega so I can make sure I have the blood cleaned up by then."

Ash and Shepard just laughed harder, and made their way out into the mess hall. Miranda could still hear their laughter, even after the door closed behind them.

* * *

><p>Miranda wasn't used to walking around Omega by herself. Naturally, she wasn't intimidated in any sense, but she found the layout confusing at times, and to someone with as good of a sense of direction as her, it was rather disconcerting. She had already made contact with the one of the Cerberus operatives that was still loyal to her, or to be more accurate that she still had blackmail on, to get more information about the project. Jack was following up with her own contacts, and they had agreed it would be best if they split up, as some of Jack's contacts would recognize Miranda as a Cerberus operative, and the Cerberus operatives would certainly be a source of irritation for Jack.<p>

After getting what information was available, Miranda found herself slightly lost in the markets. She knew that she would get back to the dock soon enough, but she found herself rather enjoying exploring the markets. The supplies had already been acquired, and Ash and Shepard were dealing with Aria, so it left Miranda with some free time, which she was currently spending wandering. She stopped in front of one particular storefront. She saw the ragged sign hanging out front, and, for some reason, decided that she would go in.

As she walked up to the counter, the human proprietor came up to greet her. "Hey, what can I do for you?"

Miranda hesitated only for a moment before she pulled out her datapad. She had saved Jack's poem onto it immediately after she had read it. While she never considered herself much of a poetry person, Jack's had touched something within her. While reading the poem, she never felt more connected to Jack, and she felt she understood her on a much different level for having read it. She had found herself rereading it multiple times, always imaging Jack's voice speaking the words.

She handed the datapad to the shop owner. "This."

The shop owner read it, then looked up at Miranda. "I wouldn't peg you for a poetry lover. Much less something like this. But yeah, I can do it. What language?"

Miranda smiled a little at his boast. "English will be fine. And I'd like the script that is on that display there, to your left."

The shopkeeper turned around and looked at the display Miranda was pointing at. "Good choice, that's my personal favorite. It'll take about two hours. You got the time?"

She nodded.

"Well then, come on back, and we'll get you taken care of.

Miranda followed the shopkeeper behind the counter into the back room, suddenly nervous about how Jack would react.

* * *

><p>It was later in the day when Jack walked into Miranda's quarters. She had just come from her quarters after putting together the information she had gathered while on Omega. She had left her boots next to her cot, as she was finding it more comfortable to be barefoot when with Miranda. She couldn't explain why, but she felt more at ease this way, more relaxed, more… normal.<p>

She saw the Normandy's XO behind her desk. _As always, at her desk, typing away, _Jack thought, though she was slightly smiling. There were few things that could be relied on in the galaxy, and Miranda's incessant working was one of those things. "Hey."

Miranda looked up, and smiled. "Hey, Jack."

Jack came behind the desk and sat down on it, next to Miranda's console. She realized that Miranda was in her white cat suit, which she hadn't worn in sometime. _She must have wanted to get dolled up for Omega. _"I got some more info. It's not much, but it's new."

Miranda nodded. "So did I. Again, not much, but it's more than we had. Before we get to work, though… I have a surprise for you."

Miranda slowly stood from her chair at the desk, smiled at Jack's confused expression, and walked over to the bed. She climbed up so that she was on her knees, facing the back wall. She moved her long, brown hair over to the side, and she slowly started to unzip her uniform, pulling it down past her shoulders, and gathering it at her waist. She knelt there, half naked, and just let Jack look.

Jack's mouth fell open. A tornado of emotions ran through her mind. There, tattooed into Miranda's skin, running from the base of her neck down to the small of her back, was Jack's poem. Initially, she was furious and embarrassed that anyone else had seen the poem, but then she realized what Miranda had done. She had permanently put this on her otherwise flawless skin. The fact that Miranda had done this floored her.

"That's… my poem. How did you know about it?"

Miranda replied without looking back at Jack. "I had asked for your datapad from Liara's. When I read it… I was amazed. I felt as if I was looking directly into you. It kept repeating in my mind."

Jack slowly walked to Miranda, more confused than ever. "But… they said it wasn't any good. And why get it tattooed?"

"Just because some nameless prick didn't like it doesn't mean it can't mean something to someone else. And I wanted it tattooed… for you. Because… you mean a lot to me."

Jack was now standing right behind Miranda. She slowly reached out and touched the tattoo, her fingers tracing the letters. Miranda sighed deeply as chills ran up and down her spine. "Jack… would you read it to me?"

Jack was surprised at this request. But she decided that she would do anything Miranda asked. She slowly took a half step forward. She had the poem committed to memory; she didn't need to read it off of Miranda's skin. Instead, she leaned forward, and, breathed the words over the tattoo as she spoke them, her lips lightly brushing Miranda's soft skin.

"My Soul

Burns

With a fire of darkness

Quenched only in the pain

Of loneliness

I hold my breath waiting

Until spots appear black as the past

And fill my lungs up with the lies of hope

I mark myself

Black and jagged

To cover the scars

That make me a monster

A warning

This is not a place of honor

No esteemed dead are buried here"

When Jack was done, she was kneeling behind Miranda, with her hands holding Miranda's hips. She could feel the goose bumps that her warm breath had brought out in Miranda's skin. She slowly stood and pressed herself up against Miranda, wrapping her arms around the brunette's waist. "Miranda, I…"

"Shh…" Miranda interrupted. She slowly turned to face Jack, and saw the tears in her eyes. She slowly undid Jack's harness, and let it drop to the floor. She reached for Jack's waist, and pulled her in closer to her. Their mouths met, and Jack's arms wrapped around Miranda's shoulders.

They kissed passionately for a moment, until Miranda started to lean back, and pulled Jack onto the bed on top of her. They began grasping at each other, trying to get even closer. Miranda started pulling at Jack's pants, pulling them down and off. Jack flung them to the floor as she to kiss Miranda's neck, moving slowly down her chest, lingering over each breast before she proceeded further down, to her abdomen, kissing all the way. Jack hooked her fingers into Miranda's cat suit, and started pulling it down, over Miranda's hips and down her legs. Eventually, she pulled it all the way off, over Miranda's stiletto heeled boots. Miranda went to reach down to undo them, but Jack stopped her. "Don't… I like the boots."

Jack crawled back on top of Miranda. Before they gave into each other completely, Miranda had the presence of mind to call out and lock the door.

* * *

><p>Later, Miranda lay in Jack's arms, resting her head on Jack's chest as Jack ran her hand through Miranda's hair. Both were smiling, and holding the other as close as possible. Jack kissed her lightly on the forehead. "Miranda?"<p>

"Mmm… yes Jack?"

Jack's stomach was knotting itself as she spoke. "Can I… ask you something?"

"Of course. Anything."

Jack couldn't think of any other way of asking her. She bit her lip lightly as if the action could keep the words in. "Why me?"

Miranda picked her head up and looked Jack in the eye. "What do you mean?"

Jack felt the tears welling up in her eyes, and decided to just let them fall. "Why me? Out of everyone… I mean, you could have anyone you wanted… why this fucked up, insane monster?"

Miranda shifted so that she was on her stomach, facing Jack fully. "I told you before, you're not a monster. And I don't want anyone else… I want you."

"But why?"

Miranda looked deep into Jack's eyes, trying to make Jack see the truth in what she was saying. "Because, when everyone else looks at me, they see perfection. You see the flaws in me. No one else has been that… honest, with me. And besides, I like tattoos. Now, my turn. You could have anyone you wanted. Why this stuck-up, cold bitch? Why me?"

Jack smiled a little. "Because… you see perfection in me, and no one else has done that. That and your tits."

Miranda leaned in to kiss her, and then she settled back in with her head on Jack's shoulder. As Jack continued to run her hands through her hair, Miranda started to trace some of the tattoos on Jack's stomach. "Do you know, the first time I saw you on Purgatory, I thought you were wearing a shirt with a design on it? It didn't process that it was actually your skin I was looking at."

Jack laughed at this. "Really? Well, what happened once you realized that I wasn't wearing a shirt?"

"Truthfully? I was a little turned on. And that pissed me off a bit. I was already not happy about bringing you on board, given your record. And of course, we, 'butted heads' for quite awhile, but I'm glad I was wrong."

Jack knew that Miranda hadn't wanted her on the ship before, when they were recruiting for the suicide mission. In all honesty, Jack hadn't wanted to join up, but with the prison ship Purgatory falling apart around her, the Normandy, and Shepard's offer, was the only way out. At the time, she promised herself that she would only stay until she got the information she needed, then she'd jump ship, but Shepard had, somehow, gotten her to reconsider her plan. His trust in her, and treating her like more than just a killing machine, got her to _want_ to be part of his team. She never thought that she would have survived the assault on the Collector's base, and then find herself lying naked with the same woman she had vowed to kill only weeks before.

The line of thinking lead Jack to thinking about the future, and she found herself oddly worried about it. Not about whether she would live or die, but worried about what she would be doing. She was happy, lying here with Miranda, but she didn't know what this was leading to. In all honesty, at this point in most of her previous liaisons, one of them would already be dressed and gone, without any intention of seeing the other ever again. She found that she didn't want this to be like any of the rest.

Miranda could sense the change in Jack. "What's wrong?"

Jack fought to put her thoughts into words. "You know what it's like… to think you're alone and find out you're not? I don't want to go back to being alone."

Miranda moved up to look Jack in the eye. She saw the woman fighting back tears, and her lip was trembling. "Jack, you won't be. I'm here."

Jack looked away from her. "But what if we go back to hating each other? What if this doesn't work out? I mean, sex is one thing… but I don't know what 's supposed to come next."

Miranda couldn't help but feel bad for Jack. Her entire life, she'd had no one, and now… Miranda found herself at a loss as to what the two of them were now. This would certainly complicate matters, but the way Jack made her feel was too good for her to lose.

Miranda slowly started to wipe away the few tears that had started to fall. "Jack, I don't know what's supposed to happen next either. I've… never been in a relationship like this before. I guess that's another thing we have in common." Jack couldn't help but chuckle at that. "But Jack, what I do know is this: you make me feel like no one else has. And I hope I do the same for you."

Jack looked at Miranda. She had to admit, she had never felt like this before. Suddenly, she had someone who made her feel safe. She liked this feeling, and wanted to feel it longer. "I'll make you a deal… if we get into a fight or an argument… no biotics."

Miranda smiled up at Jack. _I could get entirely too used to that sight,_ Jack thought to herself. "Deal," Miranda said, as she slowly, and passionately, began to kiss her way up Jack's torso to her lips. _I could get entirely too used to that too, _Jack thought before losing herself in Miranda again.

* * *

><p><em>Corpses littered the ground. The smell of gunfire, blood, and mud hung in the air. Screams could be heard in the distance, though it was impossible to tell if they were caused by the machines or war or by people dying. The city stood in ruins, every building pockmarked by bullet fire, windows broken, fires raging all around. What ground wasn't covered in bodies had dirt and debris strewn everywhere. <em>

_Miranda found herself in the middle of the chaos, holding a rifle. She knew she was responsible for the bloodshed. She looked down, and to her horror, found that every person lying on the ground had her face. She threw her weapon down, and saw blood pouring from the palms of her hands. She screamed, but no sound comes out. _

_The sound of great wings comes from behind her, and she turned, afraid of what she might see. There, before her, hovered an angel. The angel was Jack, with large, white wings coming from her back. She was naked, and held a golden sword in her right hand, with the blue electricity of her biotics dancing over the blade, and In her left hand, she held a chain from which dangled three dogs' heads._

_Miranda knew it was the Angel of Death, come to take her. _

_Before Miranda could say anything, Jack swung the blade, severing Miranda's head from her body. Miranda could still see, though. She watched her body drop to the ground, its blood washing the bodies of the fallen away. Jack was holding her head by her hair, and brought Miranda up face to face. "Look," she said simply. Jack turned Miranda's head, and she could see the destruction for miles, but as she looked, the blood that was still pouring from her corpse, was washing away all the destruction, all the death, flooding the world until it was an ocean of blood. _

_Jack turned Miranda to face her again. Now, blood was pouring from Miranda's neck, covering Jack's body. Her tattoos were washing off, her scars healing. Jack held Miranda close and roughly kissed Miranda on the mouth. "You deserve a place of honor among the esteemed dead," she said as she tied Miranda's hair around her neck, turning her into an obscene necklace, as they took to the sky, leaving the carnage far below them._

"NO!" Miranda screamed as she woke up. She was sitting straight up in her bed, covered in a cold sweat. She took a moment to catch her breath. She knew it had all been a dream, but that knowledge did nothing to assuage the terror she felt. She rested her head in her hands, and focused on the room around her. The lights were dim, so she knew it was still "night" on the ship. She looked over at her clock. The light blue display showed it was 0315. She felt the chill of the air against her skin, reminding her that she was naked. And she heard a light snoring, which told her Jack was still asleep.

Knowing Jack was still asleep brought a slight chuckle from Miranda. In the time they had been, for lack of a better term "together," she had come to find that Jack could sleep through anything. Since their first time together, Jack had been staying the night every night, though she would slip away before the morning shift started. Miranda couldn't tell why she did that, but she didn't press Jack on it. She knew that Jack was still sensitive when it came to certain things, and she trusted that Jack would eventually tell her why, it just had to be on her own time.

In the meantime, Miranda knew that sleep was not going to come again after her nightmare, just as it had not come the previous times she had it. She quietly slipped out of the bed, not wanting to disturb her lover. She quickly slipped a shirt and pants on, and walked out to the mess. _Some coffee and some quiet will help calm my nerves,_ she thought as she opened the door to her quarters.

She walked over to the kitchenette where there was always a pot of coffee on. She grabbed a cup, and, as she was pouring, was startled to hear a voice from behind her. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

She turned, and saw Kelly sitting at the main table. Miranda smiled, and walked over to sit across from her. Although initially annoyed by Kelly's presence on the ship, Miranda had come to regard the cheerful redhead almost as a younger sister. She had certainly proved he value time and time again by helping manage the incredibly diverse crew of the Normandy, and had shown that beneath her happy demeanor, she was much wiser and observant than anyone suspected. In fact, she had known about her and Jack before Shepard and Ash knew, though she hadn't told anyone.

Miranda smiled grimly as she answered Kelly's question. "Not really. It seems that what sleep I've been getting has just been leaving me more tired."

Kelly nodded sagely. "Nightmares?"

Miranda looked up. "How could you tell?"

Kelly grinned, mischievously. "I could say how your pupils are dilated which would be left over from some active dreaming, the slight bags under your eyes that show that it wasn't restful dreams, and the fact that your hands are slightly shaking, showing the after effects of an adrenaline rush… or I could tell the truth and say that your quarter's aren't soundproof and a shout carries this late at night."

Miranda smiled slightly. "It's the same nightmare, over and over again." With that, she told Kelly all about the dream, going into as much detail as she could remember. "I've had it six nights in a row now. Sometimes it's right when I'm about to wake up anyways, sometimes it's right when I'm falling asleep, other times its in the middle of the night. I don't know what to do."

Kelly thought for a moment. "Well, you have a couple different options in how to deal with this. I know you're smart enough to realize all the symbolism and metaphors in your dream, but I think it could help to talk about them anyways."

Miranda nodded to Kelly, letting her take the lead in this part of the conversation. "Well, of course we know the corpses with your face would be your sisters that Cerberus used. The three dog heads would be Cerberus, and Jack… well, that's an obvious one. You're blaming yourself, not just for what happened to Jack, but what happened to your sisters as well. But, I think you're also blaming yourself for everything Cerberus has done."

Miranda shook her head. "I know I'm not responsible for everything Cerberus did…"

"But in your mind, you think Jack holds you responsible," Kelly interrupted. "You think she looks at you and sees Cerberus Operative Miranda Lawson. Even if you don't think that, you're afraid she does."

Miranda looked down, knowing Kelly was right. It took her a moment before she had a response for her. "I see her face when we talk about our operation. I see the rage, disgust, and hatred, and I know it's for everyone at Cerberus, no matter how culpable they are with what happened to her and the others. I feel the same. But I also know I was part of that organization. I defended them, hell, I was PROUD of them. And I couldn't see past that damn pride to what Cerberus really represented. Not until it was too late."

Miranda sighed as she took a sip of her coffee. It was burnt, and the taste brought back the taste of ashes in her mouth from the nightmare. Kelly waited, letting Miranda speak. "Every time I defended Cerberus, in conversation or in action, I was damning a part of my soul. And now… with her…" A small smile started at the corners of Miranda's mouth. "Don't tell anyone this, but sometimes, I catch her out of the corner of my eye looking at me. And the look is so tender, and so caring… I feel so unworthy of it. I feel dirty because of Cerberus."

Kelly looked down. Sometimes, she felt the same way. She had also unabashedly been part of Cerberus at one time, but over the course of her association with Shepard, she had come to know more about the group. She found out about the assassinations, the attacks, and the programs like the one Miranda and Jack were investigating. Sometimes she was so mad at herself for having been so blind, but she knew that she could only learn from the experience and move forward. Something Miranda was obviously having difficulty with.

Kelly gently put her hand out and held Miranda's. "You know what, Miranda? Sometimes you just have to get over it. Do you honestly think that Jack, as strong and willful as she is, would be with you if she held you responsible? Do you think your sisters blame you? You had no idea what your father would do. You cannot be held responsible for the sins of others."

Miranda looked up. "I know. I guess… I feel like I could have done something about it then."

Kelly smiled at her. "You're doing something about it now. That's more than anyone would ask, or expect, of you."

Miranda smiled back, thankful for the advice. "Wait, you said we had two options to deal with this. What was the second way?"

Kelly couldn't help keep the grin from spreading across her face. "Oh, that. Lobotomy. Granted, you wouldn't be able to do any more reports, or really much of anything besides drooling, but you wouldn't have any more nightmares," she replied cheerfully.

Miranda laughed. "Oh God, I don't think Jack would take kindly to you transforming me into a drooling, grinning idiot that she'd have to take care of all the time. Though, I must admit, it doesn't sound like a bad way to spend a vacation!"

The two women laughed at that. Miranda felt much better, and hoped that this talk would help prevent her nightmare from returning. "So, Kelly, we talked about me, now you. Why can't you sleep?"

Kelly looked down, a sheepish look coming over her face. "Oh, I guess I'm just a little nervous."

Miranda squeezed Kelly's hand. "It'll be ok. Shepard will find away to stop the reapers. He makes a habit of accomplishing the impossible, in case you haven't noticed."

"Oh no, it's nothing like that!" Kelly reached down and brought up the OSD that was sitting on the seat next to her. "Extranet classes. I have a test tomorrow, and we've been so busy, haven't had much time to study."

A slightly shocked and embarrassed look came over Miranda's face. "Oh god, sorry, I didn't realize… I just assumed… anyways, what are you studying?"

"I'm going back to finish my psychology degree, and I'm minoring in social services. Since my time on the Normandy, I've felt that I've really been able to make a difference, that I've been able to help people. I figure once this is all over, there'll be a lot more people who need help."

Miranda nodded, happy that Kelly was looking forward to the future, after the reapers had been stopped. Part of Miranda was expecting everyone to be wiped out, but she mentally resolved to keep such doubt in the back of her mind. She suddenly felt very tired. She stood

"Well, I'm sure you'll do fine. I'm going to try to see if I can get some more sleep. You should try to sleep too. No good has ever come from taking a test while fighting to stay awake. Good Night Kelly."

"Good Night, Miranda."

Miranda stood, and put her coffee cup in the sink. She walked back into her quarters, looking forward to being back in bed with Jack. As she crawled under the covers, she slid up behind Jack, and wrapped her arms around her. She felt Jack lean back into her slightly, and was surprised to hear her voice. "I don't blame you."

"What? What do you mean, Jack?"

Jack turned to face Miranda. "I don't blame you for what happened to me, and your sisters wouldn't blame you either. You're trying to help, which is more than most people have done. You give a shit. Thank you."

Miranda shook her head. "But… how do you know…?"

Jack smiled faintly. "Your quarters aren't soundproof, and the only conversation happening in the mess carries. That, and… I was listening at the door. I felt you get up, and, well… got curious. "

Miranda smiled at that. "Jack, can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

Miranda hesitated, now unsure if she should bring it up. "Why do you leave in the morning before anyone's in the mess?"

Jack looked away from Miranda. She didn't think Miranda had picked up on that. "So that… no one sees me leaving your quarters, you know… in case you don't want anyone to know about… us. In case you were… embarrassed about fucking the freak."

Miranda reached out to Jack, and pulled her face up so that she was looking her in the eye. "Jack, I'm not embarrassed, and I'm not ashamed. I'm proud to have you. I guess, I just thought you wanted to keep us quiet so we weren't a distraction."

"I just thought… you know, it's one thing for us to be alone together, it's another for other people to know about us."

Miranda had to smile a little bit. "Do you think anyone would say anything? Between the Ice Queen and the Psychotic Biotic, I think we can safely handle any snide comments." Jack laughed lightly at the joke. "But I've been thinking about it, and… why don't we bring your stuff up here? You've been spending the night for weeks, and… I want them to know. I mean, some of them know, a lot suspect, and I see no need for us to hide anything."

Jack looked deep into Miranda's eyes, searching for any sign that Miranda was joking. "Are you sure? I mean, I haven't actually… stayed, with someone like that in years."

Miranda smiled, and ran her hand over Jack's cheek. "Well, then you're one up on me, because the last time I even bunked with someone was back in grade school. But yes, I'm sure. And besides, I'm sure Ken and Gabby will be happy to get the lower deck of engineering back."

Jack laughed. "Oh God, those two are going to turn it into their own private shag shack. I swear, the day they stop bickering and finally fuck, the whole ship is gonna cheer."

Miranda had to agree. It was obvious to everyone but their two engineers that they were in love with each other. "I know. They're both far too clueless."

They laid there in silence for what seemed like forever, each relishing the feel of the other's body against their own. "Hey," Jack finally said, her voice much stronger and confident than it had been so far in their conversation. "I have an idea. Since I doubt either of us are going to fall back asleep, why don't we go get my stuff in a little while?"

A slight smile touched Miranda's lips. "That sounds great. But what were you thinking of doing in the meantime?"

Jack looked Miranda dead in the eye, no trace of a smile on her face. "You. Clothes. Off. Now."

Miranda sighed and closed her eyes, trying to hide the smirk that was threatening to show. "I don't know, I'm feeling a little tired all of a sudden." She forced a yawn. "I might just try to catch some sleep before the morning."

She felt Jack shift position slightly. Suddenly, a wave of pleasure jolt through her system and she gasped as she felt Jack bite down hard on her nipple. As Jack released it, she pushed Miranda over onto her back and straddled her. "I'm warning you, Lawson, if you don't take your clothes off right now, I'm going to just rape you in the middle of breakfast so everyone can see."

Miranda hesitated for just a moment. "Hmm… I might like that," she said, challenging Jack. "And I don't think there's any chance of either of us stopping right now, is there?"

Jack smiled. "Nope, not at all. I'll fuck you through your clothes if I have to."

Miranda sat up as Jack pulled her shirt up over her head, before finally throwing it to the floor. Miranda then took Jack's nipple in her mouth and bit down, using her tongue to massage the nub in her mouth. Jack gasped, and pressed Miranda's head into her chest. Absently, Miranda wondered how soundproof the room actually was.

* * *

><p><strong>There we have it. the happy couple... for now.<strong>

**Coming up next time: a reunion, a mission, and can they keep their promise about no biotics if they fight?  
><strong>


	6. I'm back

**Ok, so a little chapter. It was initially part of a larger chapter, but it's not done yet, so i thought I should post this part while I work on the rest. **

**Thanks to everyone for being so patient, trying to start a business while still working, writing my own original stuff that I'm trying to get published, as well the normal every day fun things a modern life entails... been busy!**

**As always, Bioware owns the characters. But only before the Great Old Ones return and force them to give me their souls! HAHAHAHA... sorry...**

**Full disclosure, written AFTER ME3 came out.**

* * *

><p>"I feel stupid" Jack said as she pulled absently at her shirt. They were standing outside a nondescript house on Eden Prime. It was a beautiful summer day, and both Miranda and Jack were nervous, which probably contributed to Jack fussing with the normal t-shirt Miranda had talked her into wearing.<p>

"You look fine. Besides, I think it would be too much of a shock for her to see how you normally dress." Miranda replied patiently. She had to almost force Jack to wear the shirt, though the compromise that they had settled on was that she could retain her baggy pants. _Sometimes, she can really act like such a little kid,_ Miranda thought to herself completely without any malice or irritation. In fact, Miranda found it appealing when Jack fussed; it completely offset the typical badass attitude.

Miranda looked over to Jack. "Are you ready?"

Jack inhaled slowly. Holding the breath in, she nodded.

Miranda slowly reached out and rang the doorbell. The fact that this settlement still had old fashioned doorbells had brought a smile to Miranda's face.

As they stood there, both nearly shaking, they heard a sound from behind the door. Before Jack could change her mind and run away, the door opened, and a puzzled looking woman in her early 50's opened the door. Miranda studied her for a moment, noting the round brown eyes and angular cheekbones of the woman. _Definately the right person. _

"Yes, can I help you?" the woman asked.

"Ms Lucy Rowan, my name is Miranda Lawson. I have someone with me that would like to introduce herself to you."

Miranda stood to the side, and let Jack step up to the door. The woman's face took an even more puzzled expression.

"Hi… I'm… Jack. I'm… your daughter."

The woman brought her hands up to her face, as the tears started to flow. Miranda couldn't tell what the woman was thinking or feeling, but knew she was instantly overwhelmed.

"Ma'am, if I may… can we come in to talk?"

The woman nodded absently, slowly moving out of the way so the two women could enter. Jack cast a quick look to Miranda, a look that conveyed everything from "thank you" to "I'm scared to death."

As Jack and Miranda entered the small home, Ms Rowan stepped back. Miranda quickly closed the door behind her. Jack nervously looked all around, almost deliberately avoiding eye contact with her mother. Ms Rowan sighed heavily, then regained her composure. "Please, come into the kitchen, I just made some coffee.

She led them down the small hallway to the back of the house. As they walked, Jack saw a room off to the left, with a small plaque on it that said "Emma's Room." _They had other kids,_ Jack realized, unsure of how she felt about that.

As they entered the kitchen at the back of the house, Ms Rowan motioned to the small table. "Please, sit. I usually take my coffee black, so I don't know if I have any cream or sugar, but…"

"It's ok," Miranda gently interrupted her. "We both take ours black as well."

Ms Rowan smiled slightly, and quickly took three coffee mugs from the cabinet. As she poured the coffe, Miranda noticed her hands shake. Looking over to Jack, she saw the same shake in her hands. She slid her hand under the table and gently took Jack's left hand, squeezing slightly.

"Well… I guess… I don't know what to say." Ms Rowan said as she came over to the table. She sat down across from Jack, staring at her, all the while not trying to stare. "So… what happened? I was told you had died."

Miranda gripped Jack's hand tighter. "You were lied to. Cerberus… had a project. They were trying to create the ultimate human biotic. Jack here is the most naturally powerful human biotic on record, so they wanted her. During a routine exam, the doctors told you she had had a seizure and died, then sent her to one of their facilities."

Lucy nodded, though she had gone deathly white. She looked over to Jack. "I'm… I'm so sorry, I had no idea… I should have demanded that I see you, I should have…"

Jack looked up at her. "There's nothing you could have done. If you had made a scene, they would have just drugged you, locked you up, and taken me anyways. I… um… I had always thought you had given me up to Cerberus."

"You did? What made you change your mind?"

"We… have a friend, who found the security cam footage from when they took me. I… I realized that you cared… I'm sorry for having doubted you."

"Oh, child… you don't owe me any sort of apology. I should have never taken you to that clinic, the doctors always gave me a bad vibe, but… I just didn't have the money to go anywhere else. I was a single mother, away from any family, working two jobs to try to make ends meet."

Lucy regarded both women, as if she had realized something. "If you don't mind me asking… are you two… together?"

Miranda smiled at Lucy's shyness in asking the question. Jack nodded, pulling their interlocked hands up from beneath the table. "Yeah… we are. Is that ok?"

Lucy smiled. "Of course! I just found out that I still have a daughter, and that she has someone special in her life!"

Jack looked at her, puzzled. "Wait, you still have another daughter… we passed by a room, it said 'Emma's Room' on the sign on it."

The tears began to well in Lucy's eyes, though the smile remained. "Child… that's your room. I've left it the same ever since… well, it's silly, but I couldn't get rid of anything in there."

Jack couldn't explain why, but there was something she had to do. "Do… do you think you could show it to me?"

Lucy couldn't speak, but she nodded. Slowly, she stood from the table, with Jack and Miranda following her. She led them back down the hallway to the door. She paused before opening it. "I haven't opened this door in twenty years."

Jack put her hand on Lucy's shoulder. "It's time to open it. I'm back."

Slowly, Lucy opened the door. She and Jack stepped in, while Miranda stood in the doorway. Jack couldn't explain how she felt, but she felt it all at once. She saw the small bed, the pink clothes, and the toys. _Holy fuck… they loved me! _Jack fell to her knees, letting the tears flow freely. As she started to sob, Lucy fell to her knees next to her, and they embraced, sobs wracking their bodies.

Miranda quietly backed out of the doorway, leaving the two women alone. She was happy that Jack and her mother were reunited… and yet, she was so jealous and remorseful that she knew her father never loved her. She felt herself breaking down as well. She leaned her back against the wall, and slid to the ground as she felt her own tears flow down her cheeks.

* * *

><p><strong>Again, short, but important. I really enjoyed writing this one (as opposed to the rest which are *such* a chore)!<strong>

**Coming up next, another reunion, but not a happy one, and what happens when Jack and Miranda fight?**


	7. Jack, it's your mother calling

**So sorry that I've been away for so long! I didn't mean for it to take this long to get this updated. Life has gone all sorts of unexpectedly complicated and crazy, but in all the right ways, so I've been neglecting my fics, but no longer! I promise to finish this, Rules of Engagement (this story's sister story, in case you want more insight as to what everyone's favourite Commander is up to) and carry on with other projects.**

**I own nothing but a laptop, an over-active imagination, and lots of coffee... :-)**

* * *

><p>Later that night, Miranda and Jack lay in bed together in their hotel. Though Lucy had offered to let them stay with her, both Miranda and Jack thought it best to try to ease into the relationship again. They had stayed well into the evening though, only leaving because both Jack and Lucy were completely emotionally and physically drained. They had quickly made plans to see each other again the next day, though, not wanting to miss any more time together.<p>

Miranda was lying on her side, curled up behind Jack, lightly running her fingernails along Jack's tattooed arm. The light touch was eliciting light sighs from Jack. Miranda knew it would only be a few more moments before she fell asleep: whenever Jack was stressed or upset, Miranda had found this to be the best way to get her to sleep so she could rest.

So she was surprised when Jack spoke to her. "Thank you… for everything."

"There's nothing you need to thank me for, Jack."

"Yes, there is." Jack rolled over to face Miranda. "You're the one who found her. You're the one who convinced me to see her. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have… a family."

Miranda traced Jack's cheekbones. "You'd still have a family. Everyone on the Normandy, Shepard, Zaeed, even Joker, they're your family. And besides… you have me."

Jack smiled at that. "I never thought about it like that. Explains a lot, though, especially why Joker gets on everyone's nerves."

Miranda laughed. "Yes, the little brother no one asked for, that's him. I still feel bad for yelling at him when he started applauding when we moved you in."

Jack nuzzled closer to Miranda. "Jackass deserved it. 'Performance of a lifetime.' Thank God EDI disabled the microphones in our quarters after that."

They were silent for a moment, just laying together, when Jack broke the silence again. "I'm sorry."

Miranda looked at her, a confused expression on her face. "Sorry for what?"

Jack slowly looked up to meet Miranda's gaze. "That your father is such a shit, while my mom…"

Miranda waved her lover silent. "Forget it. I've long ago made peace with the fact that while he is responsible for creating me, he in no way can be considered family. I have Oriana, I have the crew… and I have you. That's all I could ever ask for."

Jack smiled, then leaned in to kiss Miranda. After a moment, Jack's kisses became more passionate, and more intense. She shifted so that she was straddling Miranda, her knees on either side of Miranda's hips, pressing herself against the taller woman. "Mmm., Jack, I'm tired…" Miranda whispered in between kisses.

"That's fine," replied Jack. "I'll do all the work."

Smiling, Miranda leaned back, as Jack moved on to kissing her neck, then moved down her torso. They were rudely interrupted by the room's comm unit chirping. Miranda shifted to check it. "Mm, fuck 'em, we're busy…" muttered Jack as she reached Miranda's belly.

Miranda just smiled, but he smile turned to a concerned expression when she saw who was trying to call. "Jack, it's your mother calling."

Jack was immediately up and checking the comm as well, an equally concerned expression on her face. They answered, with a loud, splintering crash coming over the speaker. They looked to each other, and Jack's hand covered her mouth as she heard Lucy screaming for help, followed by the sound of heavy boots marching away.

Suddenly, they heard the sound of Lucy's comm unit being picked up, and a breathing sound coming over, as if through a respirator mask.

Miranda and Jack looked to each other, both feeling the cold rage and determination seething beneath the surface. "Who's there?" Miranda fairly spat the words out."

There was no answer, only more breathing. Jack couldn't take it anymore. "I'm going to find who you are and I will peel the skin from your flesh."

Two words spoken were all they heard before the line went dead. "Lawson? Zero?"

* * *

><p><strong>I'm posting the next chapter at in the next few minutes, as I feel that, after all this time, this may have been too much of a tease.<strong>

**Up next: a fight, a final confrontation... and a death in the family.**


	8. Jacqueline Naught, meet my father

**Ok, after the last chapter (more of a teaser, I know) I had to post this behemoth. Basically, this is what I've been leading up to. **

**Bioware owns the characters, setting, and my soul.**

* * *

><p>Both Miranda and Jack were dressed and out the door into their land car before they knew what was happening. It was only a short five minute drive to Lucy's house, but Miranda made it in record time, arriving only two minutes after the call had been disconnected. They arrived in time to see two shuttle landed in the small clearing near Lucy's house, with familiar white-armored troopers around.<p>

"Cerberus!" Jack had barely finished the word before she biotically launched herself through the cockpit glass directly at the largest grouping of troopers, blue lighting coursing over her body.

Meanwhile, Miranda directed the car at the closest shuttle, diving out of the door as the car impacted, with the closest Cerberus troops being flattened by the shattered body of the smaller vehicle.

As Miranda tucked and rolled, she pulled out her SMG. She stopped in a crouch, and immediately opened fire, dropping three troopers before they had the chance to return fire.

With the element of surprise gone, though, the Cerberus troops were now organizing their escape. Jack was whipping through the troopers, flinging them into the air with a full reckless abandon, trying to get to the lead shuttle. She thought she had heard her mother's voice coming from the cargo hold, and she fully intended on rescuing her before anything happened.

She knew she was making herself a perfect target for a sniper, or anyone who would take the time to properly line up a shot, but she wouldn't allow anyone to stop her. Besides, between the sheer terror her charge was inspiring in the men in front of her, and Miranda's supporting fire, Jack was able to focus on getting to the first shuttle.

After just thirty seconds, the neighborhood looked like a warzone. One shuttle was grounded, as the car had taken out its thrusters when it impacted, and bodies lay everywhere. Jack rushed to the shuttle and blasted the Cerberus troops inside against the wall, shattering the spines with the force of impact. As she took a moment, she saw her mother strapped into a seat, hands bound and her face covered. As she rushed over to free her, Miranda made it to the door as well.

She quickly surveyed the carnage, and used her own biotics to remove the bodies in the shuttle, not wanting to shock Lucy too much. As Jack lifted the blindfold, Miranda finished removing the bodies. "Mom, what happened?"

"I, I don't know. I was getting ready for bed, when I heard some sounds from outside. I looked out my window and saw those men throwing smoke bombs into the neighbors' houses. Before I knew it, I heard a loud pounding on my door, and then… they were in the house."

"It's ok, we're here now, we'll take you some place safe."

"Do you really think anywhere is safe?"

The words made all three women freeze, though only Miranda knew who was speaking. _Shit…_ Miranda cast a furtive glance to Jack, who seemed to understand. Turning to her mother, Jack whispered to her "Stay here, we'll take care of this."

Lucy could only nod numbly as Jack and Miranda stood. They approached the open hatch, each with their hands raised. Stepping down, Miranda saw who had spoken to them: Henry Lawson, her father.

"Come over here, slowly."

He stood across the square from them, pointing a high-powered pistol at them. He was motioning to a small clearing directly in front of him, free from the debris of the firefight.

They reached the clearing. "What, Miranda, you won't introduce me to your friend with the gun?" Jack's tone was casual and disarming, which, Miranda had learned, was a dangerous tone for Jack.

Miranda smiled mirthlessly. "I do apologize, where have my manners gone. Jacqueline Naught, please meet the head of Lawson Industries, corporate whore, and all-around galactic bastard Henry Lawson, my father."

Henry half-bowed. "Guilty on all counts. A pleasure to be reunited with the fruits of my labor."

Miranda snorted. "I'd hardly say you did any-"

"Not you, you ungrateful hag," Henry interrupted. "Subject Zero, the ultimate human weapon."

Jack bristled. "Name's Jack, asshole. And no one talks to Miranda like that."

"You will learn that I do as I please." Henry looked Jack over. "You were too young when you were at the Pragia facility, but I'm pleased to see the striking woman you've become. I will say this about my renegade daughter, she does have her father's taste."

A predatory look flashed in Jack's eyes as she smiled. "Drop the gun, I'll give you a mouthful."

This time, it was Henry's turn to smile. "I'm fine just as I am."

Jack sighed. "Suit yourself …" Jack and Miranda moved as one, each diving to the side and pulling their pistols our in unison "... but we'd like you better full of holes."

Miranda had had enough as well. "No matter what game you're playing here, this is the end."

"Oh, it is the end. But not for me." Turning to Jack, he said "Zero, initiate Winter protocol."

Miranda was confused by his words, but she saw Jack immediately tense up. Jack's hands flew to her head as she fell to her knees in obvious pain. "Jack!"

Miranda saw a small smile form on her father's face. "I knew the Illusive Man would find out about my involvement sooner or later. I had to protect my investment, so I made sure certain… fail safes, were introduced, in case I ever needed to end my association with Cerberus."

Miranda was only half-listening to him. Keeping the pistol trained on him, she made her way to Jack. "Jack?" She spoke as she put her hand on the biotic's shoulder.

Immediately, Jack turned on her. "Cerberus!" She growled, allowing biotic energy to wash over her.

Miranda slowly backed up a few paces. "No, Jack. Not anymore. Don't you remember…"

"CERBERUS!" Jack screamed as she lunged at Miranda, a shockwave of biotic energy preceding her. Miranda was flung backwards, her pistol clattering to the ground.

As Miranda scrambled to her feet, she felt the impact of another wave of biotic energy. It lifted her into the air and slammed her against the shuttle behind her. She heard Lucy inside gasp. Gritting her teeth, Miranda managed to whisper to her "I'm going to pull their attention, and then you run, get out of here, ok?"

Not waiting for a response, Miranda looked up to see Jack, enveloped in a cocoon of biotic power, starting to run at her. Miranda stood, and ran at Jack, intent on giving Lucy the chance to get away.

Just before Miranda and Jack reached each other, Miranda sent a quick shockwave behind herself, increasing her speed just enough so that he outstretched foot caught Jack by surprise, toppling her. As Jack fell, though, she reached out and grabbed Miranda's arm, pulling her down on top of her.

Jack used Miranda's momentum to sweep her, rolling the two of them until they were on their sides. Jack looked over Miranda. Miranda spared a quick look, and saw what Jack was looking at: a sharp spike of metal lodged in the ground behind her. Immediately, she knew what was going to happen. Miranda renewed her efforts to break away from Jack, but Jack merely increased her biotic field, and easily pushed Miranda onto her back.

Miranda screamed as the spike pierced her back, lodging itself deep in her flesh. Mustering a reserve of strength, she threw Jack backwards, though Jack held on to her, flipping her up and over until Miranda landed on her back again. This time, the metal in her side was pushed all the way in, coming to rest just below her liver. The pain stole her breath as her mind exploded in anguish.

Jack landed on top of her just then, and Miranda finally was able to look into her lover's eyes. Instead of the piercing blue she expected to see, she saw a fiery orange: it was clear that Jack wasn't in any sort of control, and Miranda doubted she was even aware of what was happening.

_I've got to stop her without killing her…_ as soon as she thought that, Jack's elbow came down, crashing into the bridge of her nose, easily shattering it.

After the strike, Jack was off balance for a moment, which is all Miranda needed to get her feet up between the two of them and push the biotic off of her. Miranda spared a moment to look behind her, and was relieved to see Lucy fleeing shuttle, casting a horrified look at the fight before finally taking off into the night.

Miranda turned back to Henry and Jack. She stood as tall as she could. No matter what, unless she could figure out a way to break the hold Henry had on her, she knew Jack would kill her, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. _So be it…_

Henry cocked his head to the side, regarding Miranda. "Is that it? Are you going to join us as one big happy family now?"

Miranda laughed. "I'll never join you. And no matter what controls you may have buried in her mind, neither will Jack. If you make her kill me, one day, she will remember, and she'll kill you."

Henry paused for a moment. Slowly, he lowered his gun. "Perhaps you're right. Despite all of our differences, Miranda, we can agree that this has gone on for far too long. All of the lies, all of the manipulations… what were they all for?"

"We need to finish this, Father."

"Once again, we agree." Henry raised his pistol quickly, and fired a round off, hitting Miranda right below the sternum. She felt a rush of cold as her body went into shock. She slowly reached up, and felt the blood start to flow from the wound. As her vision blurred, she fell to the ground.

She was fighting for consciousness as she heard Henry speak to Jack. "Zero… finish her."

Miranda was reaching for the small medkit she kept in her left boot. At the very least, it would fill the bullet wound and stop the bleeding long enough to try to finish the fight, but she saw a dark shape stand over her before she could get her hand on it. She knew who it was.

"Jack, Jack please… I lo-" Miranda couldn't finish as she started coughing, each cough more painful than the last. "Please…". Through the blood in her eyes, she thought she saw a single tear start to roll down Jack's cheek.

"No." The word was barely a whisper, but Miranda heard it. She heard it again, this time, stronger. "No."

Miranda saw Jack's face contort. In a frightening display of grief, rage, and pain, Miranda saw Jack build up her biotic energy. "No, no, no nononononono NO!"

The last word was screamed as she turned and released all of her pent-up biotic energy, directly at Henry. The blast knocked him several yards backwards. Jack slowly began walking towards him, knocking him back to the ground whenever he got back to his feet.

"No more. No more Subject Zero. No more weapon. No more psychotic biotic. No more being controlled, no more hurting my friends…" She was standing above Henry by now. She reached down, grabbed him by the throat, and held him above her head. "And no more you terrorizing my loved ones."

"And what do you plan to do about that?" Henry's voice was strained as he tried to breathe around the woman's tightening grip.

"Easy. All I have to do is squeeze."

"Is it? Then go ahead. Squeeze the life from me."

Jack's sense of triumph quickly faded. As much as she tried, she couldn't close her grip and close his windpipe.

"Another failsafe. You can't kill me."

"No, but I can." Jack turned, and saw Miranda standing. Miranda was battered, and bloody, but not beaten. From her hand, she dropped the empty emergency medkit. She took a halting step forward. "This ends here, father. I won't let you hurt anyone ever again."

She nodded once to Jack, then started to let her biotic energy build up around her. At once understanding, Jack let her own biotics charge up, until Miranda nodded again.

All at once, Jack stepped aside, and fed her biotic energy to Miranda, who directed all of it square at her father's chest. The screams of Henry Lawson could only be heard for a moment, as the biotic push, fueled by two women's anger, hate and pain, slowly started to disintegrate him. First his clothes were reduced to atoms, then his skin started to peel back, followed by layers of muscle and tissue.

After only a few seconds, Miranda released the last of her energy, and Jack stopped her own energy feed. Miranda staggered only for a moment before Jack rushed to her side to hold her up. "I'm ok," Mirand reassured Jack.

"I'm so sorry, I… I didn't know what I was doing…"

"It's ok, Jack. It wasn't you, it was him. He did this."

Miranda leaned in and kissed Jack. "It's over."

Jack kissed her back. "Yeah, except that whole reaper thing, unless Shepard already took care of them."

Miranda smiled wanly. Jack put Miranda's arm around her shoulders, and started to lead her past the remains of her father. As they stood beside them, though, Miranda stopped, and looked down.

"Imagine that, all these years I've been wrong."

"What do you mean?"

Miranda pointed to the exposed torso of her father. "He had a heart after all."

Jack smiled. "Lawson, you are seriously disturbed."

Miranda looked to Jack. "Coming from you, I take that as a great compliment."

They kissed, and before they walked off, Miranda turned back to the remains. She had one last thing she had to do.

With all of the anger, hurt, and contempt she could summon, she spat onto what was left of the corpse of the man that had created her. She would never consider him her father ever again.

Mentally and emotionally closing the book on her struggle with Henry Lawson, Miranda Lawson now walked off with her lover, as the sun rose over the horizon.

* * *

><p><strong>Aww, how sweet! And sorry, I couldn't resist the "had a heart after all" line, it made me smile when I thought of it, so it had to go in.<strong>

**The next few updates on this are going to be smaller chapters, as our heroines try to find some normalcy while gearing up for a war that might end in everyone's deaths. Will Miranda and Jack live happily ever after? Only time will tell!**

**As always, ALL reviews (negative, positive) are encouraged! Let me know what you guys want, I aim to please!**


	9. Shut up, I hate you so much

**Again, sorry for the lack of updates. Unfortunately, this story is running up to a point where I have some major re-working to do, so it may be a week or two until that gets sorted out... but please be patient!**

**As always, Bioware owns everything: the characters, the settings, my soul...**

* * *

><p>It was five days after the attack by Henry Lawson's troops. Miranda, Jack, and Lucy were all sitting in Lucy's small kitchen, sharing a cup of coffee. Lucy was obviously still having trouble coming to terms with what had happened.<p>

"So, that sort of thing happens often with you two?"

"Unfortunately, it's usually a lot worse."

"Yes," Miranda agreed, "this time it was only Mr. Lawson and some of his personal security posing as Cerberus agent. Usually it's groups of Krogan, mercenaries, Collectors…"

"Oh, and don't forget deranged Asari Spectres!"

Miranda smiled. "Yes, them too."

Lucy saw right through the playful banter of the two women. "So you're constantly in danger, always risking your lives… but for what?"

Jack sighed. "We're part of a team. We're trying to stop the Reapers."

Lucy nodded. "I know. And you're both needed there. I guess I'm just scared that, after I just found you two, that I'll lose you."

Jack reached out for her mother's hand. "Mom, I promise, we'll make it through. And then we'll come back, we have a lot of time to make up for."

Lucy laughed. "Yes, I guess we do. I'm so looking forward to getting to know both of you so much better."

Miranda's comm unit chirped once, indicating a new message instead of a live call. Miranda quickly pulled up her omni-tool and checked the message. Smiling, she sent a quick reply, then powered her omni-tool down.

She looked back to Jack and Lucy. "Sorry, just found that that Jack and I are rich beyond our wildest dreams."

Both Jack and Lucy were shocked at Miranda's statement. "What do you mean?" Jack asked.

Miranda smiled mischievously. "Well, it appears that the Lawson Industries security systems aren't as secure as they assumed. With a little help from a certain master thief we know, I was able to hack my way in, and… assert my authority of Lawson Industries."

Lucy's eyes went wide. "You stole the entire company?"

Miranda laughed. "Consider it an inheritance. It's about time his money and resources did some good in the galaxy. I assumed the role of CEO, and, well, let's just say that there's considerable re-structuring to come. You mentioned before that you have some office experience, Lucy?"

"Well, yes, some minor mid-level management for a local crop harvesting firm, but-"

"How about a new job? I get the feeling you're trustworthy, and I could use some help when this is all over getting Lawson industries back to work trying to fix the galaxy's problems instead of making new ones. What do you say?"

Lucy smiled. "I say I can start on Monday."

They all relaxed. Miranda was healing incredibly fast from her wounds. Fortunately, aside from the gun shot and the spike in her side, most of her injuries had been minor. The local hospital had insisted on keeping her for evaluation, but with the Normandy expected back in only another day, Miranda had opted to finish her convalescence on board. As it was, with her right arm in a sling and both eyes black and swollen from her broken nose, she knew that she looked like hell, but she was grateful to have Jack back.

Jack, for her part, felt terrible about what had happened, though Miranda was refusing to hear any sort of apology. She had promised that they would work together to find out any other "fail safes" that had been implanted in her psyche, so that she would finally be truly free. As terrible as she felt, she had never met anyone like Miranda, and knew that whatever the future held, she wouldn't have to face it without her.

"So, when the Normandy arrives, you two will be off again… but I do hope you come back soon. I can't wait over two decades for my daughter to visit again!"

Jack smiled. "Don't worry, we'll be back. We'll kick the Reapers' ass, then come and take you on a nice vacation to celebrate."

Lucy smiled. "Thanks, child, but feel free to, um… 'celebrate' without me."

Jack didn't understand, but when she saw the smirks spreading across Lucy and Miranda's faces, she almost felt the lightbulb go on over her head. "Oh. Oh! Mother!"

At that, neither Lucy nor Miranda could keep it together anymore. They broke down in hysterical laughter, with Miranda holding her bruised ribs. "Oh, Jack, the pain of laughing is worth the look on your face!"

"I hate you guys," Jack pouted.

"Oh, Jack, what's the point of having a daughter if you can't do everything possible to make them uncomfortable in front of their girlfriend?"

Miranda slowly stopped laughing. Jack shifted in her seat. "Yeah… I, uh, I'll be right back."

Jack fairly spring from her seat and disappeared down the hallway. Lucy looked after her, then looked to Miranda.

"We… haven't really put a label on what we have," Miranda explained. "I think that would make it more real, and therefore, more easily lost."

Lucy regarded the suddenly sullen Miranda with a weighted eye. "Miranda, what are your intentions with my daughter?"

The question took Miranda by surprise. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Your intentions with my daughter."

"I… I hadn't really thought of it like that. I've been busy focusing on our mission. And trying to figure out what exactly Jack and I are to each other."

Lucy leaned over and put her hand over Miranda's. "Let me give you some advice, dear. You need to know where you're going before you can know where you are. Do you think that we'll all survive the Reapers?"

Miranda searched her feelings. She consciously fought the realist within her to listen to what her heart told her. "Yes. Yes, I do."

"Then what do you plan on doing afterwards? Where? And with whom? Is this relationship because the two of you are under life or death stress day after day? Or is there something more?"

Miranda felt herself go cold. _What if that's all this is?_ The thought made her nervous. She didn't want to hurt Jack, but she knew that if that's all this was, Jack would be devastated. But she also had to think of what she wanted to do after the war. She could envision herself in any of a number different positions: helping the rebuilding efforts, coordinating the assets of Lawson Industries with various governments to help get refugees to home… dozens upon dozens of opportunities came to mind.

She realized, though, that in each scenario, something was missing: Jack. She had given thought to what she would do that she hadn't even thought to ask Jack what she wanted to do. Suddenly, a flood of thoughts and emotions ran through Miranda. Anger, fear, frustration, sadness, and concern chilled her. _How could I be so selfish, how could I be so inconsiderate, I need to tell Jack that I don't want to hurt her, I'm so stupid for not thinking about this…_

Sensing the distress that Miranda was putting herself through, Lucy gently squeezed Miranda's hand. "What do you want in life?"

The whirlwind of thoughts and emotions within Miranda coalesced for a moment into one thought: the memory of every morning for the past several weeks of waking up with Jack in her arms. Suddenly, everything else melted away. The tension left Miranda's body. She knew what she wanted.

Lucy saw it to. "Then you better go tell her."

Miranda smiles and nodded. "Thank you."

Lucy beamed back at her. "Even after decades, I still got that maternal instinct."

Miranda smiles. "Yes, yes you do. Excuse me."

Miranda got up from the table, and went outside to where Jack had fled. Standing outside in the daylight, she looked around for where Jack might be. "Hey."

Miranda turned at the sound and found Jack sitting cross-legged on the roof of the house. "Hey yourself."

"Come outside to calm me down?"

"Not exactly. I kind of like it when your adrenaline's pumping."

Jack let out a soft chuckle. "That's not what I meant," she muttered.

"I know." Miranda walked back towards the front of the house. Using her limited biotics, she boosted herself up onto the roof next to Jack. "You shouldn't be using your biotics, doctor's orders," Jack mumbled.

"And you shouldn't be running off like that. Girlfriend's orders," Miranda gently joked as she sat down.

Impulsively, Jack wrapped her arms around herself. "Yeah… I… um… yeah."

Miranda leaned back, looking out over the peaceful neighborhood. "I've always wanted to live in a place like this: quiet, away from the pressures of being some 'perfect' person. I've always just wanted a simple life."

"Yeah, me too," Jack barely whispered her assent.

Miranda looked around. She found what she was looking for. She pointed to a house about halfway down the block. "How about that one?"

Jack looked. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think about that house?"

Jack regarded it cautiously. "It's… a house. What do you want me to think about it?"

Miranda looked at Jack, and noticed the guarded, cautious look in her eyes. "I want you to think whatever you want to think about it. I want you to feel about it however you want to feel about it. I don't want you to constantly think that you need to do or say or be something that you think I want. I want you, Jack. Glorious, beautiful, complicated you."

Jack felt lightheaded. Somehow, Miranda always knew how to get the butterflies in her stomach to flutter. "I… I know. I guess… sometimes… I don't feel good enough. I don't feel like I deserve this… deserve you."

Miranda smiled. "Well, you're a convicted criminal, right?" Jack nodded. "You've always taken what you wanted, did what you wanted, and anyone who has a problem with that be damned, right?" Jack nodded again. "Then what do you want?"

Jack smiled. "You. And anyone who has a problem with that be damned."

Miranda smiled. "Good. Now, what do you think about that house?"

Jack looked again. "Eh, it's fine. Why?"

"I was wondering if you would like to buy it, for us to live in after the war."

Jack was speechless for a moment. She hadn't really even thought about what they would do after the war.

"Jack, I can imagine any number of things that we'll need to do after all this is over. But I realized that no matter what I do, I want you with me. I may be needed to do any of a dozen or so things, but I need you."

Jack felt herself start to tear up. _Damn, she makes me feel like such a pussy sometimes._ Aloud, she said "and I need you."

"So," Miranda said with a mischievous grin spreading on her face. "What do you say? Want to go steady?"

Jack laughed out loud. "Shut up. I hate you so much."

Miranda smile. "I hate you too, Jack."

Jack shifted so she was sitting behind Miranda. She wrapped her arms around the brunette's waist, and pulled her backwards, being careful about Miranda's injuries. She sighed. _My girlfriend… I could get used to that thought. _"You know, with all we've been through… I think we deserve a bigger house than that one."

She couldn't see it, but she knew Miranda smiled at that. "I agree. What about designing and building our own? There's plenty of space here, and I'd love to be near your mom."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

The two of them stayed like that for well into the evening, just enjoying being together.

* * *

><p><strong>I figured that both Jack and Miranda were due some quiet time after all they've been through, and, in all honesty, all they're going to go through. No spoilers, but there are scarier things in life than Reapers...<strong>

**Coming up next: As Shepard and Ash make final preparations to stop the Reapers, where do Jack and Miranda find themselves heading?**


End file.
